Argghh, dude you broke my arms , and who even are you ? .
sorryfor that , but please tell me about what you were talking about earlier ? , now it's now fully healed , could you tell me please about the incident that you were talking about just now .
How much are you going to give me for this kind of information ? .
Arrrgggg, my hand, my hand.
I was in mood for playing these stupid games with him, so i directly broke his arm again and left him howling in pain and activated my Aura Of Strong skill again which drained all the colors from his face.
After a few seconds of him in pain, i again asked him to tell me about that incident and this time he nodded weakly and began to finally cooperate with me and tell me about what he heard .
A Beastfolk girl named Liliana that works in Regard's Inn was being held captive by the guards since she attacked a Noble in the city, the reason of why she did such a thing is currently unknown but her sentence had been already decided and her sentence was to be executed tomorrow morning in the public square in the city as an example to the other of her kind .
No doubt about it now, she was really the Liliana that i know , but why did she attacked a human being and a Noble at that, gosh what was exactly going on here and how come that Regard wasn't there to stop her , so many questions, arrrghhh my head is really about to explode .
I managed to calm down myself and asked in a hurry :
Do you recall the name of that Noble that she attacked ? .
He nodded at me and said with fear still apparent in his eyes. :
The Noble she attacked was non other the relative of the new Head of the Adventurer's Guild , someone from the Noble house Bling.
The person who got hurt and was mentioned by the people who i heard talking about this incident and if i was recalling it correctly , he was called mr.Bling .
That guy again, why was he related to every incident that befell Liliana, was he really so obsessed with any way just by him being of a Noble house ,it already made this incident got a lot more complicated than it was .
I let go of the guy and healed him before i storm out of the teleportation Hall heading to the city of Trond on foot but with my current speed i was able to cover the distance in minutes and while i was running at full speed i felt that as if i had struck an invisible wall but i paid that feeling no mind and continued on my way .
Unaware of the consequences and the amount of money lost due to my casual action just now .
The feeling of stumbling with something a moment before was very much true and What i stumbled with was the illusion magic used to hide the location of the Teleportation Hall from those carts and carriages which were unauthorized from being able to reach there .
And when i stumbled with it just now, i was going full power which led the whole illusion field to crumble, allowing a full view to the location of the Teleportation Hall and easier access and most importantly a free one too .
Someone was going to lose their source of income for a day or two or maybe for even a longer period of time but that was something the current me have nothing to do with .
I hurtled to the city and even used both Stealth and Camouflage to bypass the guards at the gates and with my resistant to the wind all this happened under everyone nose but no one was able to find me out .
Back inside the city, i was able to see a lot of preparations being made, first the bustling scenes from yesterday were no where to be seen neither were the different kinda of stalls, second a lot of checkpoints were now apperant nearly at every corner of the streets , third all the people who were capable of fighting were queueing in front of what i presumed to be some kind of armoury .
Waiting for getting fully equipped with armors and weapons which looked quite shabby but i reminded myself that at least these equipments were being distributed for free and it wasn't like everyone had the help of Regard in sticking a bargain .
What do you mean by asking for 10 silver coins to lend us some shabby equipments weren't the fees 5 silver coins in the last raid and what was the 50% tax even related to ? .
I almost ate the pavement after i heard those words and in the end i guess that i was the one being quite optimistic , thinking that anything in this damn kingdom were distributed for free other than misery and the suffering .
Ofcourse the tax is based on the amount of monsters each one of you who got fully equipped from the kingdom's Armoury hunt in the upcoming raid as for the 5 silver coins increase in the fee, it happened for two reasons the first was because of the sudden news about the time until the next monsters raid strike ,so the amount of equipments that the kingdom needed to produce simultaneously increased .
And the second reason was related to the first one, since the need for equipments increased the need for talented blacksmiths did too all the increase in fees were all being spent for you to get a good quality equipment to help you in fighting against the incoming monsters attacks .
I was dumfounded at the shamelessness of that guard who tried to absorb the rage of the common people by telling such a blatant lies and the people around the armoury were too, all of them gave him an incredulous kind of looks.
I believe most of the common folks here including myself were all thinking of the same question and that question was : who were you trying to fool by saying this kind of nonsense ? .
And in the end his try to absorb their dissatisfaction backlashed and they began to raise their voices even louder with some of them beginning to throw logs of wood at the guards in a try of expressing their dissatisfaction in a more clearly way .
And the reason to why were the reactions of these guys being so severe was quite proportioned to the state of the equipments that were being shown .
Shabby looking equipments and their were even the traces of them being used before hence some of those weapons even some signs of dried blood on them and they have the audacity to say that these weapons were weapons of good quality that was recently produced, some of these weapons looked to be easily broken with minimal efforts too , and they had the audacity to say that they were recently made .
I almost facepalmed myself for still believing that this kingdom had actually anything good to offer its citizens, and was even more surprised to why these people didn't leave the capital city and moved out to live in a more comfortable city for them or even the whole kingdom but i believe the latter to be quite since the bad relationship the kingdom of Troland currently have with the other Kingdoms leaving only Terra and Diblosia one ruled by some tyrant named Vouce and the other was a demon land and a Dark kingdom .
Just as i was contemplating on my mind a habit that i hope to drop a carriage suddenly make a sudden turn towards the armoury where common people were now rioting in .
The carriage then stopped and i can already tell that it had someone important on board as just by it appearing the rioting people all stopped in their places and their anger began to recede or more likely they begin to forcefully calm themselves down and i can verify that whatever what was happening to them wasn't the effect of some skill but something more capable and more dangerous too , Authority .
What is exactly going on out there ? .
Said a rogue voice who i most presumed to be coming from a male, the voice was carrying a lot of untamed arrogance and unhinged cruelty in it, the voice wasn't that much loud but by just hearing that voice, people who already got their equipment were beginning to disperse in a hurry and those who still haven't had the chance stood there with a desperate expressions on all of their faces , even the guards bodies were shaking .
I will only ask one more time , what was exactly going on a moment before and from where were those rioting voices coming ? .
One of the guards was able to gather his courage and went to the carriage and began to explain what exactly happened a moment before without forgetting to mention a thing, it felt like he was actually enjoying seeing where were this going but he will be very much disappointed as he will probably not be able to see anything anymore.
The guard who went to the carriage and just as he finished explaining what was exactly going on was suddenly split in two halves after he finished explaining, yet even this gruesome scene failed to spark even the tiny bit of reacting from the current audience other than a few people gritting their teeth in frustration, mainly the guards with a few normal people too .
I was able to see more clearly than them how that guard just got cleaved in half horizontally, the door of the carriage opened and a blue beam of light was then being released from inside the carriage, splitting that poor guy into too, but the silence that followed after was what really creeped me the most .
Useless, if they refused to pay then the best thing we can do is to leave their life or death to fate and let them fend for themselves on the battlefield with rags and wooden bats .
Some of the more rational people in the audience began to hurriedly bow down towards the direction of the carriage saying that they wanted to get the equipments but wanted some leniency in the price issued for the lending of these equipments .
A leniency you say, sure we can do that .
And as his voice fell cheers began to be heard from all of them and some even begin to shout hail to the king but a few was actually looking at the carriage with wary eyes filled with doubts and their reaction wasn't uncalled for since the next words of that man in the carriage completely demolished any hope they have left and any hope i have left for this lousy Kingdom since he first asked :
What were the current fees for the lent equipment ? .
And someone from the crowd shouted that it was currently priced at 10 silver coins .
Welli believe that to be quite unfair for the poor people of this country , so we will change it as to not burden our citizens more than they obviously are , guards ? .
Yes, sir .
Make the fee required for lending the equipments be 15 silver coins .
Silence, complete silence was now engulfing the whole area in it and i believed that to be the fuse which will set out the fire in the hearts of those men and women that were currently here but all i saw was the deadpan expressions on all of their faces.
No more gritting teeth, nothing only those deadpan expressions all over their faces but the silence was broken by an inhuman like laughter coming again from that cursed carriage and after a few seconds of his laughing voice being the only thing heard in the surrounding area he began saying in a commanding tone :
Why did you stop cheering, continue now .
And i saw all the people around the armoury began to chant and cheer weakly and with the same deadpan expressions still on all of their faces like as they begin to chant and cheer like zombies repeatedly saying : Hail to the King , Hail to the King , Hail to the King .
Those whose chanting won't be to my liking will be put on the frontlines no matter what their Ranks be .
The voice grow louder and more life-like but they all still have the same deadpan expressions on their faces and some were even crying while they were chanting and all of them was looking at the direction of the carriage with quite mixed emotions but mostly consist of fear and awe .
Want To know where will the 5 silver coins increase be spent on , the guards worked quite hard to distribute those equipment to you, you won't disagree that they should be rewarded now, would you ?.
But no one answered, it's more accurate to say that no one had an answer to that kind of question and even if they did have an answer, they won't be courageous enough to give it to him, so they just continued to stay silent .
I thought so too , guards i believe that the problems here are solved but a word of advice to you guys, you should do your job more effectively or else you might find yourselfs like those desperate people in front of you .
Then the carriage began to move out of the area and head to who know where while leaving a bunch of soulless eyes and the sobbing voices of hundreds of people behind it .
I was clenching my teeth and fists so hard that i even began to hear the cracking sounds of my bones, but i had to stay rational for now since i already have enough troubles to deal with, so i can't make a scene here but in the next minute, i heard a conversation between a parent and his child that almost broke my heart to pieces .
The child : Don't cry, Papa, MoMA, i don't want to get candy anymore .
The father and mother even sobbed more at the words of their child and then they looked at each other then they nodded and the father then said : don't worry about it dear, wanna go and get some candies and come back later .
The child also began to sob and said : but....but... .
The mother then said : don't worry dear, your father will always be here to take care of everything that will ever bother us .
And this kind of scene wasn't occurring individually but more collectively in the crowd , misery and suffering indeed , but since i currently can't help those guys beating that man in the carriage , i began to think of other ways to at least lessen their suffering and the suggestions that were on my mind very much varried .
Some were related to beating the stationed guards at the armoury, allowing the people to get the amount of equipments they want for free, but i wasn't aware of the consequences of such action , so i dropped these kind of suggestion .
And decided to go with the suggestion that suited me the most and that suggestion was to financially support all of those guys using the loot i got from killing over a thousand goblins and directly began to implement this plan of mine by getting on top of the armoury using my Stealth and Camouflage skills .
And began to distribute a large amount of the goblin ears that were being stored in my storatge ring , the depressing atmosphere delayed the reaction of the people who were down there as they were being washed over by the goblin ears and the goblins unprocessed carcasses , a big amount of them .
But then the cheering began to start and some people even began to bow down and start yelling saying that it was a miracle .
A win win situation for both them and me since the amount of goblins carcasses that i had stored in the ring were quite a lot that they would have given me a headache in trying to think of a way to get rid of them and also if i tried to go to the Adventurer's guild it might complicate things even more.
And on top of all of that i felt that it was the right thing to do, but remembering that guy in the carriage from before untamed arrogant laughter made my blood boiled .
Since i have no need in continuing to stay here , i remembered why was i in hurry just now and stormed towards Regard's Inn still bypassing all the checkpoints that was in my way until i reached my destination and weirdly enough i was still able to hear the cheering and chanting of the people at the armoury sounding more lively than before .
I saw a closed sign at the doors and entered anyway but was actually met with a bottle of drink being thrown at me that hit me on the face and the voice of Regard which sounded more like the voice of someone almost dying , i cleaned my face from the drink and saw that Regard was currently sitting with a hunched back at the bar table drinking and coughing from time to time, his body had deteriorated by so much in the span of a day or so .
The whole atmosphere in the inn was depressing as if the happiness in the place had been devoured using unknown method .
I went to the bar table and put my hands on his shoulder and said :
Do you mind filling me on what did exactly happen , old man ? .
He didn't answer me nor even raised his head to look at me , his hands just went directly to my neck and he held it tightly as if he was going to choke me and i had no intention of resisting since i wasn't feeling anything and my heart was telling me that i weirdly deserve this .
A few seconds later while we are still staying in the sme state he began saying in the same depressed tone and i presumed from the stench that he was quite wasted too :
You are the reason they took my precious Liliana, you are the one who is responsible.
And these words struck my heart like a precisely aimed arrows and i involuntarily used Obsidian Armor and Aura Of The Strong and said in a cold tone that i never know that i had :
TELL ME EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED.
And luckily the sudden appearing momentum of mine was able to bring back some of his common sense back as he finally stood up and looked at me intently before his frown beginning to actually turn into a smile as he began to say crazily as if he was talking to himself the next :
You have got a lot stronger much stronger indeed, now we will have a bigger chance in breaking her out of her confinement and then i will send both of you to any place else where the king and his subordinates can't reach you .
I pulled him by the arm and I resisted the urge to slap him back to his sanity and asked again after turning off my skills what he meant by Liliana being captured and it being my fault .
He then began to finally realized what he was doing as he cleared his throat in embarrassment as he began to elaborate.
He said that he was upstairs getting some rest when he heard the sound of something falling into the ground , so he went to check what was exactly going on and just as he was going downstairs he began to hear two voices downstairs quarrelling with each other and one of those voices belong to Liliana as she was shouting at whoever was she quarreling with to take what he just said back .
Which her opponent not only didn't adhere to , but he even said : the one you are getting your emotions agitated for is nothing but a coward, who isn't even fit to be a hero .
And that's when Regard realized that things were going south so he hurriedly went downstairs and saw that the one who Liliana was quarreling with was actually that notorious Arthur Bling and he was currently being held by the collar of his shirt by Liliana but was in a very fine state .
He hurriedly asked her to let him go since he was of a Noble birth and things might got very complicated if someone of his status were to be hurt by her even by accident not to mention her being of a Beastfolk origin .
Then he apologized for the rudeness of his maid and asked him to leave which he did, but then he came back with more guards and more injuries on his face and body and asked for her imprisonment, i tried to clarify that it wasn't her fault but the guard gave me an envelope which had a royal decree in it, telling me to either held you captive by the morning or they will have my precious Liliana executed .
But as you see, i refused to do what they asked me to and the result was the imprisonment of Liliana and her date of execution have been decided to happen tomorrow morning , but i devised a plan to broke her out of her imprisonment and with you hear and you getting that much stronger, i believe we have a better chance in succeeding now .
So it was really my fault that Liliana got captured and was sentenced to death and a royal decree was even issued for that Bling to use as a set up for me but Regard refusal forced his hands to use a forceful approach, but why were a royal decree being issued in the first place , did the king and the crown prince really want me dead this bad .
What are you thinking about ?.
I'm thinking about what will you guys try to do after escaping Trond .
He then stayed silent for a bit and then said :
You two will be the only ones to escape , i will stay here and try to win you a bit more time to help you in escaping .
I looked him in the eyes and he tried to ignore my stare as i said :
And do you believe me or Liliana will be able to live with the guilt of abandoning you .
He didn't reply and i didn't want him to as i continued on saying :
And why do we need to go through that much trouble wasn't that Arthur Bling the one who was responsible for all of this, what will happen if he just pulled back his accusations , won't the guards be then forced to leave Liliana go free .
You have a point there but how can you force someone who was under the protection of the king to change his words .
It's actually quite an easy thing for the current me to do, just tell me where is the Bling manor was and i will take over the rest .
You really have changed a lot after you got back from the Wicked Forest, i'm quite intrigued to know what exactly happened to you there .
And i have made some discoveries that i also wanted to share with you and a ton lot of questions i want try to get you to answer but all of this can wait until we solve the current predicament ahead .
He nodded and i get to know where i will be heading and directly used Stealth and Camouflage and stayed for a bit longer to see the surprised expression on Regard's face, it was quite the scene .
I began to shuttle on top of the houses until i reached the core area of Trond or as the commoner people called the Nobles residence and saw The Bling Sword flag hovering on top of a massive mansion .
It was the Bling family signature mark i hopped inside the mansion and was able to successfully navigate towards the room that i was here for thanks to the few chitchat of the servants and the maids in the mansion and directly went inside and found a chair by the window and sat on it and waited .
I stayed seated in the chair until night came thinking about countermeasures that i could use to solve this without using much lethal force for the sake of Liliana and Hana too .
Right, i should check my status window , i heard a few notifications before i lose conscious , just as i was going to check on my status window the door of the room was opened by a guard and then entered the room the same arrogant familiar face who was having a quite victorious smile that was almost threatening to take over his face .
HOPE YOUR NIGHT WENT WELL MR.BLING , MINE IS JUST BEGINNING TO .