Chapter 440 The Celebratory Party V: Kieran Cooper



"Nice to meet you, Duke Cooper."

"…Same here, Evan Eris."

The two shook hands lightly, ignoring the gazes coming from more than half the people in the hall who were not being subtle about their intentions to eavesdrop on the two's conversation.

However, it seemed Kieran was prepared as he lightly flicked his finger and used magic to prevent sound coming from their mouths from spreading any further than a meter away from them.

"Convenient.

I should really learn wind magic spells like this, should be able to cast them even with my 0 affinity for it."

Evan gave a light depreciating smile as he used his mystic eyes to read the spell's construction, before turning back to Kieran and continuing.

"Still…I doubt Emperor Isaac would send you of all people for such a not-so-important issue. The Marquis Parrus over there would have been enough.

I'm guessing you're the one who decided to come in person, am I right?"

"Isn't that obvious?"

Kieran was the Second Star of the Great Eastern Empire, someone far too high on the Hierarchy to serve as a representative for this kind of occasion, so it was easy to infer that his presence here was a personal decision he had made after becoming aware of the invitation sent to his Empire.

"It truly is. Heard a few conversations here and there, all about people guessing why you came over. Too bad they lack enough information to arrive at the real answer."

Evan deactivated his mystic eyes as he spoke, collecting a wine glass from a passing waiter while carrying on with his words.

"It has been a few months since then, but I'm guessing the contents of my conversation with Du-Marquis Randall didn't sit right with you, huh?"

The General's eyes narrowed ever so slightly as he noticed that Evan nearly called Bourne by the title of Duke, before switching to his 'official' title.

"Of course, it doesn't. I'm really curious about how you managed to gain information about the Wolfen plans."

The young hero sighed and shook his head upon hearing Kieran's words, before finishing his drink and replying.

"To be honest, that entire conversation was a mistake made by a younger me in a moment of excitement."

"…What?"

"Simply put, I was surprised? Shocked? and maybe a little bit excited at meeting someone famous and I wanted to leave an impression, so I spouted a bunch of stuff I wasn't supposed to know in order to seem all mysterious and all.

But thinking about it afterwards, if the Emperor-your Emperor, ordered for a special forces unit to infiltrate this Empire and then kidnap me to drill me for all the information I have, then it would not have been weird at all.

Hell, I'm even surprised he didn't."

"So, you do realise how suspicious you seem?"

Kieran muttered lightly after hearing the boy's words, deciding to keep the fact that a unit was indeed dispatched to get to Evan, however, the Geto incident happened and Emperor Rudeus' eyes were drawn to that Barony so they could not take any action of the sort.

"So, how do you know about that?"

"You don't expect me to answer you so easily now, did you?"

"Thought so."

The man replied calmly, having expected there to be no way Evan was going to give him a straight answer, only to realise something strange about the entire situation.

"Wait up…you said you were surprised at having met someone famous. I get that Bourne is famous and all given his high nobility rank, but that's not what you were talking about, is it?"

"Isn't that obvious?"

Kieran ignored Evan throwing his earlier words back at him and decided to ask the more important question.

"How did you know 'what' Bourne was?"

"Um…I have an appraisal skill. I think this should be common knowledge by now."

"Bourne always carries an item that obscures the results of any appraisal-type skills. Your skill should not have worked."

"Ever heard of this thing called 'Full Appraisal'? Any obscuration would not work against it…unless of course the person I'm appraising is either currently limiting their power to a certain level like Marquis Bourne clearly was.

In that case, the results I would see would be the current stats of their limited state."

Evan gave a light explanation about his skill, passing his empty glass to a passing waiter and changing the topic to something else.

"I hope you guys don't move your plans forward. I have a few things to handle in the Beast Kingdom before I can finally come over."

"Nothing major has changed."

In lieu of Kieran's response, Evan was noticeably relieved that his silly action had not made things take a different tangent than they did in the game, still, he was quite curious about why they didn't change.

"You don't seem to have any objections to me knowing, and interfering with your Country's agenda."

"Objections? I have plenty.

But even with how very suspicious you are, I'm not blind enough not to see the boons of having a 'Hero' siding with my Empire during a war, especially one of conquest."

The man's reply was pretty much as Evan had expected, with the young hero sighing softly as he spoke.

"It's funny how I didn't want to publicly reveal that I was a 'Hero' yet. Only top dogs in world powers like you, the GWE's Emperor, the Beast Keeper over there…"

He looked in Selah's direction as he spoke, prompting the woman to turn towards him upon sensing his gaze.

After giving her a light wave, he carried on listing the kind of people present whom he wanted to inform of his hero status first.

"…but, a certain annoying deathlord just so happened to be infusing his voice with magic power when he deduced my hero identity.

Controlling information would have been easy if he was talking normally, but that didn't turn out well."

"Even if the Necromancer didn't say it, people would have discovered sooner or later. Your actions were not exactly subtle."

"I know. I expected people to figure it out, just now. The world was not ready yet."

A frown appeared on Evan's face as he placed two fingers on his forehead, sighing softly and saying.

"The number of future plans that have gone down the drain because of that one action. Now I have to recalculate everything I planned for the next few years."

"Things you've planned for the future, huh?"

Evan gathered a small amount of wind-attributed magic power in his fingertip, redirecting it to the invisible magic circle at their feet and dispelling the barrier that prevented sound from escaping as he spoke.

"The fact that heroes are appearing in this day and age, should obviously be a forewarning that something that requires their power is prompting that appearance.

But you all have already deduced that, right?"

"Indeed, we have."

The reply to Evan's words came not from Kieran who was beside him, but from someone else walking up from behind him.

She was a tall woman with lightly tanned skin, light blue eyes with yellow 'cat-eye' pupils, and dusky blonde-accented dark brown hair.

"Warlord Salib…"

"No need to tack on the title. Just call me Isobel."

"Okay. That works better for me, anyway."

Evan replied to Isobel with a shrug, before carrying on with what he was telling Kieran.

"Anyway, it stands to reason that the Heroes in question would be vaguely aware of the 'thing' that requires their power.

Naturally, we have to make plans in advance, too bad Dominik's actions messed up said plans."

"Mind telling us what this 'thing' is?"

One of the representatives from the Elven kingdom joined in on the conversation with that question, however, Evan only smiled lightly before saying.

"Why should I say it this early in the game? Where's the fun in that?"

"Although keeping secrets like this is fun in its own way, that's not the main reason why this guy over here isn't saying anything."

Laurene tapped Evan's shoulder as she interjected, before greeting the Elven representative with a light nod and continuing.

"Certain requirements have to be fulfilled before we can tell you what you want to know."

"Yeah…what she said."

"Then do you at least know where your fellow Heroes are?"

The Elf asked Laurene this, but the girl only crossed her hands into an 'X' in front of her chest and replied.

"Don't ask me that, ask him?"

She pointed to Evan, whose brow twitched lightly as he shot back.

"You're selling me out short here, you know?"

"Come on, if anyone is to know where they could possibly be, it's you.

Anyway, the presentation of rewards is about to start soon, so get yourself ready."

Laurene finally delivered the main message she came over to, before chatting up the Elven Kingdom's representative and Isobel, and stylishly leading them away from Evan and Kieran.

"So, what did you want to ask me? I only have time for one question."