We reached the inn and Regard was already there in front of it he appeared to be quite sober and very guarded at the sudden appearance of the carriage, presumedly thinking that it was here on ill purpose .
But then Liliana had She stuck her head out of the window while calling for him loudly saying :
Master, here, here, they let me go and they came to take your head .
I almost choked at her words and looked out of the window to see him actually beginning to sob hysterically with a big smile on his face, as he began waving back at her.
The carriage then stopped in front of the inn then its door opened and Liliana dashed towards Regard and they both embraced each other tightly as if they were afraid that the other was going to disappear or something like that.
A few seconds later they broke the said embrace and Regard looked inside the carriage ad if trying to find something or someone but he wasn't capable to find what he was seeking but he shook his head and gave a thumb up gesture towards the carriage then nodded and began to enter the inn ,but not before of course showing his apperant enmity towards that man called Arthur Bling .
Take us back to the manor , feeling more uncomfortable by the second in staying here, he directly ordered the coachman to take us back to the Bling's manor .
A few minutes later, we arrived at the manor and were back to the room that we had only left recently .
He opened the door for me and i entered the room and turned off my skill , and sat on my previous seat, then he also entered and closed the door and brought a chair and sat in front of me, as he asked me looking quite dejected, saying :
So i did what you wanted and the girl was now free , could you now let me off the hook ? .
I believe you forgot what i said before about still not having answers to my questions .
What questions do you still have , i will do my best to satisfy all your needs, but can i expect a bit more leniency in return?.
My only response to his plea was a nod, then i continued on saying :
First, why did the kingdom issued a Royal Decree and gave it to you of all people ?.
To make the claims i had seem more believable and to give me an easy time dealing and ordering the guards around, and last and foremost to prevent Regard from taking any actions .
And why would a Royal Decree have such a binding like effect on a retired Adventurer and an inn owner ? .
And my question let him baffled for a few seconds as he looked at me weirdly and answered with a a question of his own which made me a bit baffled too , saying :
Didn't that Regard told you anything about this ?.
I remembered something that might be related to this somehow, but i wasn't quite sure how , but everything will become more clear in time probably .
So i asked him :
Was this related to him being unable to get out of Trond ? .
And he actually nodded but didn't tell me anything else other than if i wanted to know more, i would have to ask him about it myself which i kinds understood and accepted, i then asked him on why was he of all people that was given the Decree .
Which he answered by saying :
I was given that Royal Decree by my uncle, and he told me that in this way both the parties actions will be quite justifiable , but if you asked why we were chosen for this kind of task, the direct reason will be us the Blings having a deep connection to the current Royal Family .
Figured, i wasn't that surprised but more genuinely intrigued in finding out what that deep connection was, so i asked him directly about it and his answer made me see the king in a new view and certainly a weird one too, since he said :
We are connected to the Royal Family in-law like relationship but not exactly.
He was actually becoming quite embarrassed taking about such a thing, i was still silently looking at him as if waiting for him to continue and him seeing me like this he sighed heavily and said directly :
My young aunt Lida is one of the king's concubines as per the agreement that the king held with all the noble's houses in the kingdom, the noble house who have a girl older than 16 years old , will have to betrothed it to the king as his concubine and each family must have at least one of their girls in the king's harem to guarantee that their position and influence both were unshakable , and the boys tends to be chosen to act as Royal Guards, deepening the connection even more between the Royal Family and the nobles .
So that's why the thick-skinned noble was actually blushing, it turns out that his so-called connection was his aunt being the king's concubine , i wanted to laugh but still reminded myself not to push or else he might start resisting again .
The next question i have for you is why exactly the King and the prince want me dead , do you have any information about that ? .
The prince wasn't the one who tasked me with the task of capturing you, it was the king who did and he tasked my uncle and my uncle in return tasked me with it and he formulated this whole plan for the sole purpose of either forcing you out of your hiding place or forcing Regard to capture you for us on the premise that we will set his maid free .
As for why he did this, that was completely out of my knowledge, but that ring on your hands might be somehow related to why were you targeted by the king ? .
So the king was the one responsible for this, or was it still the doing of the prince but he asked the king to take the blame, there is still the possibility of that Bling being a lier too and what relation my stortage ring have with the king , why the wondering i just need to ask the guy in front of me if he knew something .
So how exactly does this ring of mine have a relation with the King ? .
Did you get the ring after you encountered a man with a skull tattoo with a few stars being on top of it ? .
I nodded and remembered that the person who gave me this ring did really have a skull mark on his arm that was also donned with a few stars as well, three if i remembered correctly .
That could explain why you're currently being persuaded by the Royal Family since the organization who the guy you got the ring from , are exclusively working from the shadows under the commands of the Royal Family, taking down the enemies of the kingdom silently or in your case, anyone who isn't being liked by the king , and why i suspected you to be the one who did it was because in the last day a lot of people were going around asking for the owner of this ring whereabouts, even the Hero Yamada came to my uncle to issue a task, rewarding whoever had any information about that guy's whereabouts .
That normally might be enough to clear my doubts, but if i remembered correctly the assassin himself said that the person who sent him was the crown prince, was the crown prince lying or was it the king who lied , but with that Yamada being mentioned again, the probability of this whole situation being related to the crown prince only increased a bit more , but this still not clarifying why they want me dead .
You said that it was because of the ring, he was able to recognize me why was that was there something of great importance in the ring, i don't believe that the king was just avenging his subordinates, right ?.
I really have no idea, my only task was getting you captured then directly deliver you to the Royal Palace alive , as for what was going to happen to you after that, i really have no idea , but if you showed me the content of the ring, i might be able to pinpoint the item that the king could mostly want.
I can already tell that he was actually trying to hide his curiosity of the nature of the thing that could catch the king's eyes, for him to even issue a Decree for a chance to get it back, but he wasn't aware that maybe his imagination was just running wildly and there was neither such an item nor even something of similar category in the ring.
I always swept the ring with my mind a bit hastily, yes, but i'm quite sure that there was no such an item in the ring, but i still began to take some of the things in the ring out directly trying to satisfy his and mine curiosity, since i wasn't able to check its content more throughly since i got it, but now a chance rose suddenly in front of me .
And at the mentioning of the need to check, i really need to check on my current status window since i have leveled up for quite a few times yet still didn't distribute my new free attributes points , i wasn't even sure on how many levels did i gain since my last visit to the Wicked Forest and my meeting with that Bloodlord .
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Name : Sakurai Ryuu .
Age : 16 .
Level : 12 .
Job : undetermined !!
Free attributes points : 20 .
Attributes :
Strength : 720 . (+) ( NEW )
Stamina : 960 . (+)
Agility : 369 . (+) ( NEW )
Mana : 660 . (+)
Spirit : 15 . (+)
Hidden attributes :
Constitution : 40 . (+)
Will : 80 . (+) ( NEW )
Luck : 20 . (+)
Fate : 60 . (+)
Spirituality : 10 . (+)
Comprehension : 46 . (+) ( NEW )
Skills :
( Troll Force ) ( PASSIVE SKILL ) .
( Novice Swordsmanship Lvl10 Max Level) ( PASSIVE SKILL ) .
( Physical Fortitude ) ( PASSIVE SKILL ) .
( Pain Resilience ) ( PASSIVE SKILL ) .
( Appraisal Lvl4 ) ( ACTIVE SKILL ) .
( Stealth Lvl1 ) ( ACTIVE SKILL ) .
( Unique Insight ) ( PASSIVE SKILL ) .
( Healing Magic ) ( ACTIVE SKILL ) .
( Dark Vision ) ( PASSIVE SKILL ) .
( Well-balanced ) ( PASSIVE SKILL ) .
( Battle Frenzy ) ( PASSIVE SKILL ) .
( Transmutation ) ( ACTIVE SKILL ) .
( Rock Slide ) ( ACTIVE SKILL ) .
( Cave Resilience ) ( ACTIVE SKILL ) .
( Camouflage ) ( ACTIVE SKILL ) .
( Curse ) ( ACTIVE SKILL ) .
( Obsidian Armor ) ( ACTIVE SKILL ) .
( Iron Will Regeneration ) ( PASSIVE SKILL ) .
( Volcanic Mana Essence ) (PASSIVE SKILL) .
( Mountain's Fortitude ) ( PASSIVE SKILL ) .
(Armored Hide) (PASSIVE SKILL) .
(Hunter's Instinct) (PASSIVE SKILL) .
( Blink Sword ) ( ACTIVE SKILL ) .
Special Skills :
Aura Of The Strong .
Unique Skill :
Steal .
( Unstoppable Advance ) ( PASSIVE SKILL ) .
Counter : 1 .
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For the first time my attributes somehow were decreasing instead of increasing and what with the only 4 levels gained, i'm quite certain that the Bloodlord that i previously fought was one of the strongest figures on the island not to mention that he was an external threat too , could it possibly be for that particular reason he wasn't counted by the World's Will and now that i think more deeply about it, some of my skills didn't actually work on him at all .
I will ask Regard about all of this later, now that i look back closely at my skills i found Novice Swordsmanship being max level, which also give me quite the surprise and i even got a new skill and an Active one too , called Blink Sword but i remembered the state of my sword currently and sighed begrudgingly , but wasted no time and looked at the description of the two skills .
( Novice Swordsmanship Max Level ) ( Passive skill ) :
Boost the strength and the agility of its holder by 10 times when using a sword and since it's a passive skill their no limit for its duration other than the stamina of its user .
I looked around me to search for a sword want to see the apparent effect that the maxed level skill had on my strength but sadly there wasn't any a pity , but i was still rejoicing on the new effects of this skill of mine completely forgetting about the loss of the 3 times boost that were lost by my sword getting destructed .
Now to the skill that i was very much looking forward to see its description i have some guesses for what it does but i wanted to make sure that i understood it correctly and that skill was the Active skill Sword Blink .
( Sword Blink ) ( Active Skill ) :
A spatial blade attacking your enemies directly no matter where they were or what they use trying to parry it, folding the space to allow your attack to land successfully, 100% chance to hit your target no matter the distance and as long as you held a sword, people who have more mastery over the space element can be able to perceive it .
Cost : 400 mana, 200 stamina .
Cooldown : 40 minutes .
Unavoidable attack and a long distance one too covering the last shortcomings that i had but its need for a sword might appear to raise some kind of a problem but i will just have to go back to Rickan to ask if he already finished making that masterpiece he promised to make me , i paid the cost and the cooldown it have no mind since i had the skills to bypass those things .
Back to attributes i noticed that the agility should be a bit lower than what it was currently since it also lost the 2 times boost related to the Novice Swordsmanship skill, but i was more surprised seeing that my comprehension also increased by 1 time.
But then i realized that at the end of my status window the weird skill that i got from that Goblin Lord have a new change to it or to be accurate , the change occurred in the Counter under it .
Which was currently having a number one beside it, and i instantly realized what was that counter for , it was counting and recording the amount of boosts that i was currently having to both my comprehension and agility .
So i guess there wasn't anymore need for me to invest in comprehension since it will be increasing more regularly from now on , and the increase in my will attribute was nothing short of a surprise too, since i began to feel as if something inside me was changing with the rise of the attributes in the hidden attributes column .
I closed the status window and decided to allocate the free attributes points some other time since i was currently quite busy with other things and my mind currently had quite enough problems to deal with even with the now increased comprehension .
Let's get this over with , coincidentally when i focused on the current scene, i saw him looking at a weird luxurious vial of some sort with quite an unsettling expression on his face and just as he tried to reach it with his hand sneakingly as if trying to hide it .
I beat him to it and grabbed the vial in my hand and looked at him with a raised eyebrows then used appraisal on it .
Item : Life's Essence Storing Vial .
Type : Consumable .
Rank : Rare .
Description :
A vial of unknown source, used to store The Life's Essence of anything in it, which could then be used for different kinds of purposes , the Life's Essence means the blood of the said creature ,
Item History : it's quite Rare to be seen around here .
What is it with this weird vial, storing blood as a life's essence, and it have quite different kinds of purposes and what with that short Item History .
So mind telling me why are you interested in this weird vial ? .
And i guess my question took him by surprise since his first reaction was worry then turned to uncertain , so i added another sentence warning him that if i found out that his next words were lies, he can say goodbye to the leniency he wanted from me .
He began to say with a pained expression on his face : if it is really the Life's Essence Storing Vial then all the information that i will give you next were all obtained randomly as for the use that Vial have and how was it used by the Royal Family were all obtained from the gossips that my Aunt heard in the castle , so i'm not quite sure whether they were true or false .
Just tell me what you know .
The Vial you have in your hands was being searched for all over the kingdom by the king and the crown prince but wasn't to be found anywhere, until it appeared in the hands of that greedy merchant whose name is Silver Wallace and that was the only time that i actually heard about its name .
As for its uses, my Aunt told me that the crown prince is rumored to have used this weird vial to somehow gain more strength but my Aunt wasn't clear on how was he doing so, she only said that it was related to you heroes from other worlds .
And his words struck me like lightning, and with my now increased comprehension, it was quite easy to link the dots, a vial used to store Life's Essence and was in the hands of the assassin that was targeting me and the prince was using it to increase his strength even more and it was related to the people summoned from another world, i'm pretty certain that at least it wasn't something like a sacrificial ritual since there were some heroes summoned from the previous batch of heroes, but this news kept wrecking havoc in my brain .
As i began to wonder whether that prince only wanted a bit of my blood or wanted to completely finish me off now that i remembered the previous encounter with that assassin from before i'm quite positive that the crown prince want me completely dead and since the vial was in the ring of that assassin, i believe he tasked him of collecting some samples of my blood in it to .
Arrrgg i should have interrogated that assassin from before a bit more, my brain is filled to the brim with a large amount of an unanswered questions , but i believe my work here is done, so i stood up intending to leave but my sudden action tensed him but i paid him no mind and continued to walk to the door but just as i reached the doorstep turned to him one last time before saying :
I'm sure that the prince will want to summon you to ask on why you withdrew your accusations, but i need you to deliver him a massage from me, tell him that believe it or not, i can directly overthrown him and all the people who are working under him in a mere seconds .
TELL HIM THAT IF HE EVER TRIED TO INVOLVE SOMEONE INNOCENT IN OUR PROBLEMS , MAYBE HE AND HIS GREEDY FATHER AREN'T FIT TO CONTINUE RULING THIS KINGDOM, YOU WILL BE OVERTHROWN EXACTLY LIKE YOU DID TO THE PREVIOUS KING OF THIS LAND.
Make sure he get this massage and in the future try not to involve yourself in such a risky game .