บท 71: Decorated Stone Room

Aizu didn't know what to say as she hadn't expected that outcome. If she had known that Durgan would offer his sister to Yale, she wouldn't have opened her mouth.

She immediately disliked Durgan because she felt that he was selling his sister and made her remember how her own clan sold her. However, she had to admit that being sold to a genius like Yale was better than being sold to a lewd old man, but she was still against forced marriages.

Seeing Aizu's strange face, Durgan added some more words.

"My sister's bloodline can't be cut off. The purity of her is something unheard in the clan, so she needs to have descendants. That is a benefit for the whole clan. She understands the reasons, and she had already accepted them before we started to look for a suitable partner for her."

Durgan felt normal that commoner girls had a bad impression of him after seeing him offering his sister to someone he had just met. Thus, he tried to explain the situation better. Even if it was just a misunderstanding, he didn't want anyone to think that he was offering his sister without her consent.

She had already said that she would accept to see anyone her brother chose to her, but she could refuse all the candidates if she didn't like them. Thus, she wouldn't have a forced marriage. She could also look for someone herself, but no one felt that she would be able to do it with her personality.

It wasn't strange being engaged before turning ten in the noble clans, Serka and Kermu were a good example, although that might shock some commoners because their cultures were different.

Furthermore, those with better talents and bloodlines were the firsts to have an engagement to ensure that their bloodlines would be continued as soon as possible. The noble clans had proved that letting the kids be together since young was better than let them know after growing up.

"Oh, right. Yale, I forgot to tell you that my sister can refuse to marry you after you meet her, but don't worry. In that case, there are a lot of pretty candidates for you. You should know that I don't give this chance to anyone, but since you are in the expert stage and Kermu is on good terms with you, I decided to give you this chance."

Durgan looked again at Aizu, but she had the same face as before. Showing that he wasn't selling his sister and that she still had the right to choose in the end who would she marry didn't seem enough to her.

Although Aizu was only a commoner, Durgan's honor didn't let him pass that misunderstanding. The Larken Clan was very strict with their image, so being mistaken by someone as a person who can gift his sister was something that could end with Durgan's death.

Durgan had only told the good part to Yale. He had omitted that his sister had the right to refuse because he was trying to lure Yale into his clan.

However, he was really planning to give that chance to Yale. Lying was forbidden in the Larken Clan, but omitting information for benefitting the clan wasn't prohibited, and Yale could join the clan together with his master, who was already someone that the clan wanted to recruit from a long time ago.

Since Yale was also with Kermu and seemed to be more outstanding than how Kermu described him, Durgan didn't have problems in giving him a chance to be with his sister.

Durgan decided to try another method to change Aizu's opinion.

"Yale, I also forgot to tell you that if you join us, you could take that disciple of yours as you maidservant. Even if she doesn't become an official member, a maidservant from a noble clan has a better status than a commoner. If someday she manages to impress the clan, I will help her to find some guy to marry and officially join the clan. A great opportunity, right?"

Durgan didn't mind about that condition. He thought that with that condition, the girl would improve her previous impression of him and the clan. Moreover, Yale's chances to join would also increase as there was a chance that he held back due to not wanting to leave his disciple alone.

Furthermore, he wasn't lying to Aizu because if she managed to impress the clan, it was possible to find a guy to marry her, and then she would really become a member of the clan.

Aizu was astonished by the offer, she didn't want that Yale married with Durgan's sister, but if she also joined the clan, even if she only joined as a maidservant, she would be able to avoid the marriage with the lewd old man.

That future wasn't the best she imagined, but it was better than the one her clan planned to her, so she couldn't avoid hesitating.

Aizu was confused, but at least she wasn't looking at Durgan like before. That made Durgan happy because he had solved the misunderstanding about himself and his clan.

Yale was looking at the situation with a strange face. It seemed that Durgan didn't think about the possibility of him rejecting the offer after all the things he promised.

At that moment, Yale understood very well why his master had left the Imperial City. It seemed complicated to say no to those nobles who almost started to plan a wedding after meeting him for a few minutes.

Even if Durgan's sister refused to marry, Durgan would make him marry another girl, but the fact that Durgan had decided that he would marry in his clan didn't change.

Yale would be able to delay Durgan by showing the Zhan Clan badge he had obtained before, but that would be revealing the identity that he shouldn't reveal and wouldn't be a permanent solution given that his position in the Zhan Clan was extremely unstable.

Yale even feared that showing his identity would only increase the interest of Durgan in him. In that situation, he would have only worsened the situation.

In the end, Yale chose to remain with his mouth closed. As long as he didn't accept the offer, they couldn't blame him if he ran away or refused the marriage after exiting the Special Realm.

"Well, Durgan. We can continue talking about that once we leave the Special Realm. Now we will join together to find the legacy of this area, or we will search for it independently?"

Kermu wanted to delay the topic because if Durgan pressured Yale and he ended up accepting, it would be a big problem later. Fortunately, Yale had chosen to remain with his mouth closed.

Kermu also saw that Nurvey was almost to say something, and it was better to avoid involving more parties in the trouble.

Yale also liked the new topic of conversation. He didn't understand well those marriages in the clans, nor he thought about going out with girls. Even if that was normal for kids who were groomed in the noble clans, to him, that was all weird. Yale only wanted to focus on practicing, he didn't have time for the affairs of the noble clans nor to think about girls.

"Oh right, I lost the focus. We can't join other groups, but we can collaborate with others, so we can search together without any problem. It will be more effective with more people."

Durgan didn't think much more about Yale's marriage because he didn't believe that a commoner could reject such an offer. However, he forgot that Yale's master was just that type of person, and he also didn't know that Yale's personality was just like his master's, so he hated to be restricted.

Exploring with five more people was easier than before, and Durgan's group had already explored a bit, so they had less area to cover.

They managed to find a wall with a legacy in only half an hour.

The wall was in a huge room that seemed special, like the other rooms with legacies. The room was decorated with a lot of stone statues and other stone ornaments. Everyone could bet that the inheritance would be related to the earth element.

That excited Hyrk a lot because the earth element was also an element in which he excelled.

Both groups entered the room and went towards the wall to start learning the legacy.

However, at that moment, decoration statues began to move and charged towards them.

Those were stone golems, and they were programmed to activate when someone tried to learn the legacy. Furthermore, the artifacts to detect traps didn't react, so it caught everyone by surprise.

Yale sighed when he saw the golems attacking because since he got the sub-quest, he knew that the path couldn't be as easy as it was until that moment.

Yale drew his sword and prepared to battle. All the others also made their preparations to fight the golems.

However, seven of them battled with swords, Yale, Kermu, and the five members of the Larken Clan, so there was an evident lack of long-range attackers because Hyrk also fought only in close combat.

Serka focused mainly on healing because she had too many people to heal. Of course, she focused first on her group.

Aizu used all her strength to cast a combination of Water Ball and Fire Ball, launching them simultaneously from each of her hands. Thanks to her bracelet, the effects were far stronger than before.

Nurvey used support spells to protect the huge group and to boost Yale, Kermu, and Hyrk. She did nothing to help the Larken Clan members because they tried to force Yale to marry into their clan.