Ximengsi Continent’s southern region, Adelaide Kingdom’s strategic border town, Atad
A certain antique shop on the verge of being closed down was saved because of Clyde’s unexpected visit. Princess Halisi and Miss Vignia who had originally intended to close down the shop temporarily stopped their actions. It was not good for them to offend a merchant of Augusta Empire. Moreover, that honorary citizen medal had been issued by Princess Ophelia, proving Clyde had Princess Ophelia as his backer.
In the treasure inspection center, Clyde took out a few golden ornaments with exquisite workmanship and placed them on an appraisal platform. These were all treasures borrowed from Cursed Queen Lafania and her younger sister Nightmare Queen Mephis. They belonged to the national treasury of Lamina Dynasty, so it matched no style of object from this dimension, astonishing the owner of the antique shop. In fact, not even Halisi and Vignia who were knowledgeable about treasures had ever seen this style of golden ornaments.
“Mister Merchant, hel… hello, do you have any valuable treasures? We want to buy them to gift them to someone.”
“Oh, there are no issues with my other treasures. Merely, they are too expensive. I don’t want to show them here. If you can provide a safe place, I promise to take out treasures that you have never seen before.”
“A safe place? How about we go to my family? It is the safest place here!”
Miss Vignia didn’t think much about this and invited Clyde to Earl Harrison’s residence as a guest. As the Earl family’s golden Miss, she could bring in one or two merchants without any problems. Upon seeing that his objective had been achieved, Clyde exchanged a few pleasantries with the antique shop’s owner and left with them after having the treasures appraised. Before he left, the antique shop’s owner looked at him with grateful eyes. If it were not for this merchant upholding justice, his antique shop would have for sure been doomed today. This family inheritance of over a hundred years would have been destroyed in a single day.
Earl Harrison’s residence was an existence on the same scale and level of the imperial palace of Adelaide Kingdom’s King Halid the Second. It was also guarded quite strictly. With the wedding day of the Earl’s son Hal near at hand, the guards were already at maximum vigilance. Under the guidance of Miss Vignia, Clyde smoothly passed through layer upon layer of guards and entered the palace area.
This time, Clyde intended to investigate the situation of the enemy commander Earl Harrison’s residence. Princess Halisi and Miss Vignia who led the way never even thought that this handsome Augusta Empire merchant beside them was actually the supreme commander of the enemy troops. Thus, with them leading the way, the guards and patrolling party they encountered didn’t cross-examine Clyde.
Bustling servants scurried everywhere about the palace in order to carry out the preparations for the upcoming young master’s wedding and the Earl’s major birthday. Allegedly, this wedding was between Hal and Miss Alicia of Grecia Principality, which belonged to the Neutral Treaty Organization and had connections with neither Victor Alliance nor Clark Alliance, these two big camps.
On Ximengsi Continent, the human nations were roughly divided into four forces: Light Church leading the religious forces, Clark Alliance that practiced slavery, Victor Alliance that implemented a feudal system, and the nations of the Neutral Treaty Organization. The strength of the Neutral Treaty Organization was the weakest, and most of the nations were in danger of falling. Other than those few higher-ranked nations that depended on the larger empires from other camps, the military strengths of those small and mid-sized kingdoms and principalities were not much. They had to think of ways to ally with the nations of the two big alliances through marriage.
Grecia Principality exemplified this. Because of rich iron ore resources within the national border, this principality was good at refining iron and producing various kinds of iron equipment. However, because of limitations on the population, this principality’s military strength was not much, basically not enough to show in public.
Originally, Grecia Principality planned to form an alliance with Kruft Kingdom by marriage. Needless to say, when Kruft Kingdom’s Prince Gruz had met his end under those low-leveled Bloodkin familiars of Clyde’s younger sister, bloodkin Lolita Lucifer, these plans had fallen to the wayside. Thus, they could only switch to making Cromwell Principality an ally by marriage. However, Cromwell Principality’s Young Master Eric had died in the midst of the mercenaries’ rebellion in Peacock Forest Area while similarly leading an army to attack Steinbeck Fief. Therefore, this political marriage had also failed.
In the end, Grecia Principality could only ally Adelaide Kingdom by marriage. However, Adelaide Kingdom’s King Halid the Second felt that Grecia Principality’s Miss Alicia was somewhat insufficient. In addition, with the deaths of her two previous fiancés, the original marriage contract with a prince of Adelaide was changed to marrying Young Master Hal, the son of his cousin Earl Harrison in fear that she might bring bad luck to the royal family.
Grecia Principality had no objections toward this. In any case, it was all only a political move to form an alliance by marriage. Marrying a prince or Young Master Hal, both could be counted as marrying to the royal family. After hearing the explanations of Miss Vignia, Clyde was quite embarrassed. Miss Alicia was clearly being unjustly implicated. What jinx to her husband? In reality, this misfortune had nothing to do with her. The deaths of those profligate young masters had direct and indirect relations with Clyde.
“Younger sister Vignia, Princess Halisi, who is this boyfriend you’ve brought?”
“Brother, where is there a boyfriend? Mister Clyde is a treasure merchant. We have some matters with him.”
“Oh, I disturbed you. It turns out that you are a merchant of Augusta Empire. Please excuse me for being presumptuous just now.”
Along the way, Clyde encountered Earl Harrison’s son, Young Master Hal. He was a handsome, refined young man with short black hair wearing golden spectacles. Hal wore a white priest robe that had Light Church’s symbol on it. However, Hal was not really a member of Light Church.
Clyde had dealt with Light Church many times, so he naturally knew the meaning of this symbol. From the saintesses, he had learned that there were also many believers dispatched by Light Church who were equivalent to honorary members. Many imperial and aristocratic families’ Young Masters, in order to inlay their status with gold and increase their fame, paid a big price to purchase this kind of honorary believer title from Light Church. They just needed to give a lot of gold to Light Church without needing to participate in Light Church’s day-to-day activities, unlike formal believers.
Hal’s symbol belonged to those bought by money. He basically didn’t practice any light class magic. When Clyde first saw him, he immediately noticed that Hal had no light class magic, which was not the standard for Light Church’s believers. However, Clyde immediately noticed that Hal cultivated dark attributed magic due to his especially obvious evil aura.
Princess Halisi and Miss Vignia clearly didn’t know the matter of Hal cultivating dark magic. After both sides casually greeted the other, they bade each other farewell. Hal left hastily as if he had something to do. He initially had had some doubts regarding Clyde’s identity, but upon seeing the Augusta Empire’s honorary citizen medal that had been issued by Princess Ophelia, he dismissed his doubts.
“Mister Clyde, it should be fine here. There is no one to disturb here, so you can take out your treasures at ease.”
“Mmm, okay.”
After arriving at the destination, Clyde secretly admired Miss Vignia’s courage. She actually took an unfamiliar man to her lady chambers. Princess Halisi on one side also had a big heart, and she didn’t raise any objections. Even if they were magicians, if they encountered a surprise attack, they too would be in danger. To dare to bring Clyde into their own chambers… they must have thought that since this was their home, they would have nothing to fear.
Clyde scanned Miss Vignia’s chamber at will, but he didn’t see any unexpected beneficial scenes. Although Vignia was unusually haughty on the surface, she was quite good at taking care of her chambers. Clothes weren’t randomly thrown everywhere. If Clyde wanted to see some beneficial scenes, he could only open her wardrobe.
Clyde also didn’t keep them in suspense. He took out the treasures he had borrowed from the place of Cursed Queen Lamania and her younger sister Nightmare Queen Mephis. Immediately, all kinds of treasures from Lamina Dynasty piled up in Miss Vignia’s lady’s chambers. Only after he saw that the treasures wouldn’t fit in this room did Clyde stop. The storage ring he wore still had a lot of treasures left. This much was not even one percent.
Miss Vignia and Princess Halisi were dumbfounded. They looked at Clyde as if they saw a monster. A merchant carrying so many treasures without a single escort was simply inconceivable. Even if he had Princess Ophelia as his backer, it was impossible to stop the greed of other people.
“You two can choose anything. If nothing enters your eyes, t I can take out another pile!”
“No, no, Mister Clyde, these treasures are all too precious. We need some time to raise the money.”
“Mister Clyde, how about you stay here first. We will arrange some accommodation for you, and after we have raised enough money, we will trade again. How about it>”
After Miss Vignia came back to her senses, she invited Clyde to join Earl Harrison’s major birthday ceremony as well as Young Master Hal’s wedding and to stay here as a foreign guest. This was what Clyde wished for so that he could further investigate the enemy’s situation in passing. He planned to take advantage of this major birthday celebration to give Earl Harrison a special congratulatory gift.
After these arrangements, Clyde stored the treasures, and Vignia summoned a butler to lead Clyde to an honored guest room. Before leaving, Clyde carefully sized up Princess Halisi and Miss Vignia for a while. Roughly estimating their three sizes, he gave them each a gift box.
Inside both boxes were very precious treasures. The statuses of Lafania and her younger sister Mephis were quite similar to that of Princess Halisi and Miss Vignia.
“Eh, Mister Clyde, we still have yet to prepare enough funds.”
“No, Princess Halisi, Miss Vignia, this is a gift for you two. Open it when no one is around!”
“Is that so? Then thank you, Mister Clyde.”
