Chapter 60 Uh, What?

“Uh, that was not the response I was expecting. Did you hit your head too hard or something?” I asked, my confusion growing as his laughter continued. His reaction was so unexpected that I found myself second-guessing everything I thought I knew about this situation.

“Apologies young Jace. It has been a long time since I have met someone who can hit quite as hard as you. Congratulations, with that alone you have passed your test to become an E rank hunter. Unfortunately, I cannot raise you any higher, you must complete a few tasks before you can become D rank.” He stated in a calm tone, as though he was just talking about the weather.

“Alright, I’m not going to lie, I have no idea what is going on anymore. The moment I popped out of the Dungeon two of your guys attack me. I was wearing my Arcane Armor when I came out of the Dungeon, but when I cast it, you were surprised. I punch you in the kidneys with all my strength, you laugh. You realize that every one of your responses is the opposite of what I would think of as normal?”

Kaern just chuckled this time before nodding, “I guess from your perspective it would look that way. My soldiers attacked only because we had just arrived and one of our guys noticed that the Dungeon was fluctuating. We suspected that something not someone was going to come out. Your glowing purple armor was surprising enough that they thought you were a monster. Which is also the reason I was surprised. I don’t know of a lot of other people with talents that cover such a broad range. Finally, I laughed at your attack because, well I think a good spar with you would be fun.”

I stood there just blinking at the man in front of me. Part of me just knew he had to be lying, there was no way all those coincidences just lined up that perfectly. Another part of me realized that I also couldn’t argue with what he said. If I was standing in front of a Dungeon I knew was overflowing and had monsters popping out every so often, if I saw a six foot tall glowing purple set of armor with no skin or anything I would probably jump a little as well.

“Wait, that was not you or someone you sent following me last night? And how did you know I was the one going to take the test this morning. Also how come you didn’t think someone might have been in there with all the dead kobolds around?” I asked.

“Well, when we noticed that we were being followed, I had one of my men who has a talent for tracking, track you. Considering you were following us it was not very hard to keep an eye on you. He did lose track of you a few times at night, and again last night as well, but you always came back the next morning. As for the test I just came and asked after seeing that you had come here. The kobolds, we thought had been one of the patrols. There are patrols that travel around to kill monsters from overflow Dungeons, but they do not enter the Dungeon. At least not known weaker Dungeons.” With his deep and calm voice, his explanation seemed reasonable.

“Stay here, give me a couple minutes to find someone and verify your truthfulness, and if you are, I will give you a better explanation and listen to what you have to say.” I had decided that if I was able to get Evelyn in front of him, she could use her ability to sense the truth to solve this. Not only that, but her talent might come in handy. The only thing that I had to worry about was how I was going to spread Arcane Armor to her so that whatever he had done with his voice at the start did not mess with her.

When I finished speaking, he nodded his head and closed his eyes, with his arms behind his back. I quickly went out the door that the receptionist led me through and used Arcane Manipulation to spread a fine film of Arcane mana in a box around me, just in case. I had picked up on the way he implied that he could do more than normal with his talent. It made me want to use Identify on him even more, but I was worried after Marian had gained access that it really was Identify that basically infected people.

As soon as I was completely surrounded, I opened my Void Nexus. I had been keeping in contact with Evelyn throughout the entire process and she agreed to the idea of using her ability to determine the truth. Though I think she might have been just wanting to not be in the nexus for an entire day again.

She also suggested that she not use Arcane Armor. Her plan was that it would be a sort of test to see if he tried to charm her while it would not bother me. Knowing that I had never really been one for plans I just nodded along and decided to do what she said. She had proven that her talent could be downright scary when she took down the Dreadfang.

We walked back into the room and found Kaern still standing ramrod straight with his arms behind his back. When we were about fifteen feet away from him, his eyes opened and he looked right at princess Evelyn and with the most formal bow I had ever seen he said, “Good morning your highness. I hope that you have enjoyed some of what this country has to offer.”

Immediately I become defensive. Moving in front of Evelyn ready to protect her at the first sign of aggression. The fact that he knew who she was at first sight meant that he had a reason to know who royalty in another country was. That put me on edge. Though, Kaern did not even budge. He just stood there in a perfectly formal bow waiting for Evelyn’s permission to stand if I was to guess.

Evelyn fixed the man with a scrutinizing stare, her narrowed eyes betraying a mix of suspicion and curiosity. She remained silent for a moment, as if weighing his intentions, before finally speaking. "How do you know who I am?"

“My family is one of the few noble families that disagrees with how the Heirarchon family treats other races and even those beneath them. As time has passed, they have become secure in the belief of their superiority. The few that have challenged them, save Magnon himself, have never been able to beat them.” He answered promptly and with no obfuscation that I could tell.

Apparently, he was telling the truth because after a second Evelyn responded, “You may rise. Tell me, is everything you told Jace true? Was meeting you a coincidence?”

We spent the next twenty minutes with Evelyn asking increasingly more descriptive questions only for her to completely change the subject and ask about the weather or if he would kill the Heirarchons. She would stay on the tangent for a few moments before switching back to what she was asking originally.

I had to admit that either he had me fooled completely and was one of the best liars ever, or he was being honest. It was not like he even just answered every question promptly and without thought, I mean he did, but when she abruptly changed questions, he was confused by the changes and while he was answering you could see he was trying to understand the question as well.

Once she was satisfied by the answers she turned to me, As far as I can tell, he is being completely honest. He even admitted that he and his family want to be rid of the royal family. That would be a death sentence in this country.

Listening to him talk and considering his perspective reminded me of Earth, the way different nations often grappled with their leadership, the complexities of power, and the divide between rulers and the ruled. It was a stark reminder that governance was rarely black and white; citizens could oppose their government without being traitors, just as leaders could make well-intentioned decisions that still harmed their people.

Even here, with magic and noble houses, the core struggles remained the same. History had shown time and time again that a nation's leader did not define every individual within it. A corrupt ruler did not make every citizen complicit, just as a just ruler did not make every subject virtuous.

“Well Mr. Kaern, I guess I owe you an apology. We appeared near your Dungeon through a portal. The portal is a long story that we would rather not get into but seeing that the Dungeon already had a bunch of monsters surrounding it, we thought it might be a good idea to clear it. Mostly to help her improve since this is her first time somewhat on her own.” I said, somewhat embarrassed at how I had treated him.

“Don’t worry, there is nothing to apologize for. After I found out your name, my family did some digging to try and find out more about you. While there is not much to learn, we did learn you are young. Please come with me to my family’s estate. It will at least allow you have some place to sleep while we figure out a way to get you home.”

Looking at Evelyn I left the decision up to her. I was not really that worried about a place to sleep considering the fact we had my nexus. I would put my nexus as pretty close to the same level of comfort as we had at Ascension, so probably well below what a princess was used to.

Before I had a chance to message her through party chat, she responded, “No thank you Mr. Munchingham. With Jace being an E rank adventurer, we will probably get a job and head out of town for a bit. One so that we can make some money from the job, and two so that we might get some animal parts that we can sell.”

“Mr. Kaern, do you know what this is by chance?” When Evelyn mentioned animal parts it made me think of Dungeons and I remember the small disks that I had found in my first Dungeon. I had used my ability in the second Dungeon multiple times and nothing came up. Or well the chest probably would have but I didn’t test it then, but nothing else had.

At my question I reached into my pocket and pulled one the disks out and tossed it to him. He caught the disk easily and looked at it for only a moment in pure confusion before looking at me, “Where in the world did you get this? Only a handful of these are made every year. We use them to pull ambient mana into a Dungeon to help them grow stronger, in turn helping our people to grow strong.”

Staring at the disk in confusion I reached out to take it back, luckily, he didn’t fight me on it. I had several of the disks on my person and I had even given one to my dad to see if he could find out what it was. No wonder no one had beat that Dungeon, Derek, or someone working for Derek, had probably put all of them in a spot and made a Dungeon with it.

“Uh, I just happened to find it in a Dungeon, one in Magnalon.” My mind raced with the possibilities, these disks clearly held immense value, and if they could influence Dungeon growth, they might be far more useful than I had thought.