Your sword, my lord.
The knight holds out the Dukes Orichalcum sword to him, and the Duke takes it back and places it at his hip where it rightfully belongs. He then continues to walk forward in a hurry. I follow after them too.
The Duke doesnt say any word until we return to Bodes castle from the from the lobby of the Earl of Selmars castle thanks to the Field Walker used by one of the Dukes Adventurers, which worries me quite a bit.
Lord Michio, first and foremost, allow me to apologize to you. There is an old-fashioned tradition that the Earl of Selmar is upholding: a tradition that the castle of the Earls of Selmar has been build with Shield Cement in order to prevent Adventurers from being allowed inside of it. I have completely forgot about it, and I had no idea that he is going to bring that up in the first place.
After arriving back in Bode, that was the first thing that the Duke complained about to me.
As for the story about Lord Michio being an Adventurer, I think that it is most likely that he heard about it from one of the maids that have been delegated to come here to Hartz Duchy from my home. Thinking about it now, I should have forbidden them from ever talking about this to anyone.
It is a little late for being remorseful now that the deed has been done, but I was definitely careless as well.
That might be true, but still, never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that the Earl of Selmar, my own uncle, would come up with this kind of harassment and discrimination towards someone whom he only just met.
Cassia shares the same opinion as the Duke, and while I do agree with them wholeheartedly, then theres still something that I fail to understand no matter how hard Im thinking about it: what was even the point of this sudden accusation towards the Duke and Cassia? Everything started going south from that point onward, but I fail to grasp why would he do something like that to his own family? Even if they dont like each other all that much, then shouldnt family members support one another?
Still, I was surprised that Lord Michio changed his job to Explorer. I have to admit, when you suddenly offered to have your Intelligence Card checked just like that, I have broken into a cold sweat like I havent done in quite a while.
You and me both, man. You and me both.
Twenty gold coins? If he willing to offer me such a price so readily, then I guess this ring must be more valuable than I was giving it credit for.
Putting aside the possibility of the Duke feeling extra generous due to how we were able to wipe that smug smirk off of the Earl of Selmars face, I tried to recall the prices of other accessories that I know about and calculate the possible market value of the Ring of Determination, an all of my calculations are leading me to believe that its regular market price should be around one hundred thousand Nars, so that means that the Duke is offering me twice its price!
We didnt have to wait too long for a Knight with a drawstring bag to arrive, almost as if the Duke predicted that I am going to accept the price that he was offering to me. The Duke took the bag from the Knight and handed it over to me after he inspected the contents of the bag to make sure that not even a coin was missing from it.
Well then Lord Michio, thank you for taking the time to go visit the Earl of Selmar with us today. It didnt exactly go as planned, but the most important thing is that it didnt end up in a complete disaster.
When I receive the drawstring bag from the Duke, Cassia expressed her gratitude to me as well as she headed back inside to the castle. I am glad that I got to smell the sweet fragrance of her perfume until the end.
In that case, I am going to be taking my leave as well.
Of course, and thank you for your help today. I hope to see you again soon, Lord Michio.
Now that Cassia has left and returned to the castle, there is literally nothing left holding me down here anymore, so I was also on my way, walking until I left the castle premises, but I didnt stop there. Just in case if I was being followed by someone, I decided to continue walking until I left the city of Bode and then made my way all the way to Bodes Labyrinth.
How far has the exploration of this Labyrinth progressed?
Up to the tenth floor.
I talked to the Explorer stationed at the entrance to the Labyrinth to gain intel on how far did the Exploration progressed and then headed inside.