Chapter 240 – Suzanne and Laurene
"Since Greed's contractor can use his Idiosyncrasy, doesn't that mean that I should be able to use yours?"
"..."
"..."
The two stared at each other in silence for a full minute before Pride finally sighed in exasperation as she replied.
"Yes, you should.
However, you need my permission to do that.
This is a 50/50 contract after all."
After saying that, she returned to where Eliza and the others were, leaving behind the young hero who shrugged his shoulders and turned towards the Bandit leader on the floor.
"Now then, shall we continue?"
A dark red aura surrounded his arms as he spoke, causing the bandit leader to feel fear from the depths of his soul as he roused his magic power and tried to run, however, Evan had predicted this and had Kuro restrain him, allowing the young hero to continue his experiments with his skill.
After nearly twenty minutes of constant screams echoing throughout the forest, Evan returned to where the group was while wiping his hands with a towel.
He then proceeded to incinerate said towel before looking up to meet the weird gazes of the knights.
"What? Why are y'all looking at me like you've never tortured criminals to get information out of them before."
The young hero clicked his tongue in distaste as he walked up to the lightning spirit that was sleeping in Eliza's arms and picked her up.
"Did you use that skill again?"
"Yeah. You can tell?"
"I can literally see the residual aura around your arms and your right foot."
Eliza replied as she gazed at Evan's leg and saw a small blood stain on the sole of his shoes. A terrifying conjecture formed in her mid upon seeing that and she could not help but ask.
"You didn't literally stomp him to death with your right foot, did you?"
"Heck no!"
The young hero replied before leaning forward and whispering in her ear.
"I used both feet."
He then activated a basic cleaning magic spell on himself as he turned towards Sir Enro and spoke.
"Now then, how about you fill us in on your side of this story?"
◇ ◇ ◇
Royal Palace, Gerfast
Great Western Empire
March 14th
Year 1052
At the same time that Evan was getting on the carriage and continuing the journey to Osto with the Viscount's daughter and their guard detail, a tea party was taking place in the Royal Palace of the Hayes Royal Family that ruled over the Great Western Empire.
The daughters of various high ranked nobles were seated around a large table chatting with each other while having smiles on their faces.
Various drinks, snacks and pastries from high class five-star restaurants were served on the tables, with maids and butlers at every corner of the gazebo waiting on the noble ladies seated before them.
Each of the young noble ladies present was dressed in the latest branded clothes and jewellery, however, they didn't go over the top and kept it on the modest side of things.
Despite the fact that they had been served, none of the ladies touched anything besides their drinks, only taking small sips to quench their thirst when needed.
The main reason for this was that the party hadn't officially started.
There were a few empty chairs here and there, but the party wasn't considered to have begun until the host of the party, the one who was meant to take the empty seat at the head of the table, was present.
Said host, was the highest-ranked young lady in all of the Great Western Empire, the Princess of the Empire and the Fourth of the New Generation Heroes, Laurene Hayes.
The Empress had organized a tea party for the older generation which consisted of the mothers of all the young ladies present, and had also decided to let the younger generation have something similar at the same time.
In reality, she felt that her daughter had been too busy recently and had wanted the young teenager to relax a bit and socialize with her peers, as such, she had this party organized.
However, Laurene was still handling a few matters concerning another base of the previous seven heroes that had been recently discovered and had been late.
So, in the meantime, the ladies were chatting among themselves, while waiting for the princess to arrive.
One of said ladies, was the brown-haired girl Evan had met in the Mansion of the Damned, the daughter of Count Dyer, Suzanne.
She was chatting with a few other young ladies around her when one of them mentioned something they had recently heard.
"Lady Dyer, I heard that you recently went to Kasteblum recently for the winter."
"Hmm? Indeed, I did."
While Suzanne had actually gone over to retrieve something that was stolen from her family, that could exactly be disclosed to the public so the cover story was that she had gone over to Kasteblum for a short winter break.
The young noble lady engaged her peers in the conversation, discussing some of the sights she saw in the city-state of magic, ranging from their enormous number of mages to their foods, some of the sights she had seen and so on.
"Oh wow, sounds like you enjoyed yourself quite a bit."
"I did.
Going there, I understood why some nobles liked to go over there for the winter. It is quite a nice place."
Their light conversation about Kasteblum continued until a look of remembrance flashed across Suzanne's face.
"Speaking of nobles, you guys would not believe who I met in Kasteblum."
"Who?"
"You met one of our country's nobles?"
In response to her friends' curious voices, Suzanne gave a short reply.
"Young lord Evan Eris."
Hearing Evan's name, the young ladies present were shocked, to say the least. After all, he was one of the highest-ranked nobles in their generation, yet he had so many stories about him flying around already.
From his disappearance a year ago, to his actions in Geto City, now they're finding out that he was in Kasteblum.
However, that was not the cause for most of their shock. When they heard from Suzanne that Evan had become a Master level existence and was close to level 150, they couldn't believe their ears.
"How did he get so strong so fast?! Even Sir Arnold only reached the master level at 15! And he's the greatest genius of our generation."
Suzanne was about to reply when a voice suddenly rang out from behind her.
"Level 150? Seems like I've been left behind, huh?"
Turning around, Suzanne was met with a pair of striking blue eyes staring right at her, causing her to jolt in surprise as she recognized the face those eyes were on.
"Your Highness?!"
Her involuntary shout attracted the attention of all the other ladies at the table, causing them to turn in Laurene's direction.
They all offered their greetings to which Laurene responded, before taking one of the empty seats beside Suzanne and asking.
"So, you said something about meeting that id-, I mean, meeting Evan in Kasteblum."
"...yes..."
Suzanne disclosed the same story of her visit to Kasteblum that she had told the other ladies and said she coincidentally met Evan when she was touring one of the 'Facilities' in the city-state of Magic.
"Also, Miss Lane said to give you her regards."
"Eliza? She's still with him?"
"Yes. The two of them were together when I met him."
Hearing this, Laurene placed a hand on her chin and sunk into her thoughts, wearing a pensive look on his face before suddenly saying out loud.
"Maybe I should go over there myself?
Nahh...there's no point.
She then turned back to Suzanne and asked.
"Did he say anything about where he was going to head to afterwards?"
The young Lady of the Dyer family thought back to her conversations with Evan after being asked that, and remembered that Evan did mention other countries during their talks.
"Yeah. Some of the things he said didn't really make sense to me but he did mention a few other places.
Like the time he was talking about someone's brother, he mentioned going to Hobha."
"Someone's brother? You mean the tall dark-haired blood red-eyed woman with him?"
"...yes.
You know her?"
Suzanne took a short moment to reply after hearing Laurene's fairly accurate description of the high demon Pride.
"I wouldn't say that but we do have a few 'memories' together. I do know that her brother is in Hobha so it makes sense for them to go over there.
Did he say anything else?"
"Yeah. He said something about Bultom in Cheverton, but that's all i recall."
"Huh? Isn't Cheverton supposed to start in July?"
Laurene reflexively asked back after hearing Suzanne's reply, but she instantly realised there was no way that the girl could possibly know the answer.
A quick glance around showed everyone present paying attention to their conversation, so she quickly changed the topic, picking something that was sure to catch the attention of all the ladies present.
"On to more important things, have you ladies heard about the new Dress shop that opened up in the noble's district?"
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