Otoko Nara Ikkokuichijou no Aruji o Mezasa Nakya, ne? Chapter 283

Following the last time we entered the dungeon I'm still developing guns in the plaza on the 8th floor as usual.
Crushing the small problems and making small improvements to be tested during the next time we enter the dungeon.
If there's no problem at that time then I think we'll try using it in the halls and room bosses.

If that goes well then the next time after that I intend on finally going to the 9th floor and trying to fire the net gun against the group of Minotaur. If it's effective against trolls and the such then it should be fine to expect it to be useful against the mino.

And, putting aside the dungeon which has been going somewhat smooth(though it's not completely smooth), as a matter of fact right now Miduchi and I are on way towards the capital.
While we were in the dungeon this time there was a reply from Marquis Dasurain that he wanted to meet and talk with me as soon as possible. The meeting place is the Department of the Royal House area inside of the government office in the capital. I could have sworn that even if other places were different the department of the royal house(has the role of acting as secretary to the King and manages the royal court and such) and the department of castle forces(deals with military affairs) would be located inside of the royal castle.

Even the imperial household agency of j.a.pan is located in the imperial palace right. Well, when I tried asking about it later, not just both of the departments, but the other departments also have an area in the castle as well but the castle itself is nothing more than the location of the organization and something like the headquarters are all packed into an area of the government office building.

And, if the King has business with the minister, politician, or bureaucrat or whatever and wants to talk with them he calls them all the way from the government office to the castle. This, the higher your position is wouldn't it just become that much more troublesome getting called out by the King all the time? It would have been fine if the royal castle was at least right next door to the government office.

Of course, even I understand that it would be unpleasant to have a ton of politicians(or you could call them high rank n.o.bles) and officials coming to work in the royal castle which also acts as the house of the royal family everyday, so I can understand the reason for splitting them up.

But, even then I have to wonder about how it's over 1 km in distance away. I'll have to make sure I don't make the same mistake. I wrote it down in the notes of my heart.

Since we're meeting a minister, Miduchi and I are wearing high cla.s.s clothes like the ones on the days of judgement.
They open in the front resembling kimono from our past life. Though even if I say kimono there's no difference in the sleeves for men and women. Also, there's no hakama on Orth so I can't help but feel like it's off with the appearance. In exchange we're wearing somewhat comfortable pants and the same combat boots as usual. Incidentally, I don't have any official position and I'm a low ranking n.o.ble so the color of my obi is deep green. Miduchi's is a vivid pink color.

First off we stopped by Sandak company which was acting as the intermediary and greeted the company president before going to the department of the royal house together with him. After coming to one of the government office buildings that was a.s.signed to the department of the royal house and the company president conveyed to the squire or knight from the third knight group that was acting as gatekeeper about our appointment with Marquis Dasurain. However, we had a chat about the buildings around here and recent affairs with a different knight from the one that went inside for about 15 minutes while waiting so we weren't bored.

After that we were let through into a reception room like place. After sitting down on the sofa and sipping at the tea we were given I heard a shouting voice saying, "Hn? The room of Makkaze? I said to take them to the room of Kamukura right!". Miduchi and I exchanged glances. How noisy right.

"He's on his way."

The company president of Sandak company who's wearing the same green-type obi as me said.
So that voice was him huh?

And then, a single old man entered the room. It was a skinny old man a sharp glare. He has a gray reverse triangle beard growing from his chin and his slightly long and plentiful hair of the same color for his age was carefully combed towards the back of his head. You can tell from a glance that what he's wearing is high quality and while it has a similar design to the kimono Miduchi and I were wearing but I'm sure it cost several times more. The color of his obi is..wow, red. It sure is different when it comes to a minister and Marquis.

Ah, the King's is purple, the queens, princes, and dukes are blue. If my father were to "formally" have an audience then his would be black. Marquis Webdos is yellow and the commander of the first knight group, Baron Logan is red. When it comes to company commander level I think it would be white or so? The color of these obi displays they're n.o.bles and even among them are graded by ranking to some extent. No matter how important they are commoners and free people can't use any colors except brown, light blue colors, or otherwise pink and different colors like Miduchi.

This old man must be Marquis Dasurain.

"Your excellency Marquis, thank you for the other day. And then, these two over here are the ones.."

Sandak Company's president exchanged glances with us.

"It's nice to meet you, your excellency. My name is Alan.Greed."
"I'm Midu~ritto.Chizumagurol. It's an honor to meet you."

We stood up from the sofa and greeted him.

"Oh! Oh!? .......Greed? I've heard that somewhere..Greed..And, excuse me. I'm sorry about especially calling you out. I'm Dasurain...What, Greed!?"

Obviously Marquis Dasurain has only just found out about our information as the sellers.
Since he was so infatuated with sister I'm sure he had some memory of the name Greed.
Although, recently I haven't heard his name from sister at all anymore, so I thought he either gave up or was just too busy to bother with it.

While Marquis Dasurain froze up staring at my face as he was about to sit on the sofa, Miduchi and I took our time taking our seats again.

"Forgive my rudeness suddenly asking something like this but do you have a relative in the first knight group?"

Marquis Dasurain asked me while still frozen in place.

"My older sister is in the care of the first knight group. I'm amazed you know of her."

"..Alan.Greed..Greed Companys..The {Slaughterers} huh..No wonder."

He~ I'm amazed he knows about trivial adventurers like us. Well, a youth who's still at the age of a brat established a company that centers around rubber products and furthermore just the other day surpa.s.sed the achievements of his majesty the founding King George.Rombert the first so I guess it's not strange for him to know the adventurers name. After all thanks to that I've become a bit of a celebrity even beyond just an adventurer.

"Ah, no. I'm sorry for all the rude questions. I've heard that your older sister is an extremely skilled magician. Is magic your specialty as well?"

Well, I thought he would ask something like that.

"I'm just a bit better than the average person. When it comes to magic then this Miduchi is even better than me."

Miduchi smiled when I said that about her.

"Hmm, a dark elf huh...Then I guess it's not strange for you to be skilled with magic..By the way, Chizumagurol-san, what is your void magic level?"

Marquis Dasurain asked Miduchi as he sat down on the sofa.
What are you s.p.a.cing out for?
It seems Miduchi missed that while s.p.a.cing out.
I poked her with my elbow.

"Ah!!? Yes! Pl..Please excuse me. I'm just a bit nervous.."

It couldn't be helped so the Marquis repeated his question again.
Could you stop with those sorts of things?
It would suck if we leave a bad impression on such a big shot right.
Though it can't be helped.

"It just reached 5 the other day. Your excellency."

Hearing that Marquis Dasurain's eyes opened wide in surprise. Though it's really 7.

"As expected adventurers who use spells in live combat on a daily basis have an easy time raising the levels of their magic special skills."

Supposedly this old man entered the dungeon in Baldukk when he was young as well. However, as expected when it comes to the Royal Court Magician he knows that it's more efficient to directly use magic to deal damage to earn experience towards magic. Of course, efficiency earning experience points and the proficiency levels of spells are completely different, and if you were to ask rather than using attack spells to deal damage adventurers save their mana for using healing spells far more often. That's why it's not known very well.

I kind of want to try bluffing and pretend to show admiration to see how much he really knows but it would be unpleasant if it ends up a snake in the bush and it's not like I have anything to gain from it so I just let it pa.s.s.

We discussed recent events for a few minutes and it was finally time for the meeting to enter the main topic.

"Putting that aside and the matter today was about that ring. After all was that something you obtained in the dungeon of Baldukk?"

"Yeah, that's right."

Since Marquis Dasurain didn't know that I was the seller of the ring he didn't know that it was something found in Baldukk. After that when I told him we obtained it from an altar on the 9th floor and he was hmming to himself with a face of admiration.

"By the way, it was mentioned in the letter we received from you the other day but supposedly the ability of the ring is "recovery" right?"

If "recovery" means the "acceleration of healing" then it's something extremely valuable to adventurers. Even if you get injured it shortens the amount of time you have to spend laying around on the surface and that directly relates to earning even more.

"Umu. I've already confirmed myself that it has the same name, {Ring.Of.Protection}, as the one that's pa.s.sed through the generations in my family and has the same effect as well."

"I see now.."

If it's not a mistake in my memory then that wasn't supposed to be recovery but damage reduction.

"For future reference would it be alright for me to ask what kind of method you used to test it?"

Hearing my words Marquis Dasurain gave me a simple explanation.
The method was just as listed below.

I think I mentioned previously how when writing contracts you mix your own blood with powder from magic stones to use the thumb print. During that time you normally use a pin to p.r.i.c.k your fingertip. HP doesn't decrease for just that degree of wound. But, things that hurt still hurt. It's nothing significant and it doesn't even interfere with concentrating for using magic. Well this depends on the person though. In the case of most people, if they seriously start concentrating to use magic it's still possible.

That's why in the case of n.o.bles who have a higher ratio of people that can use magic, many of them will use a healing spell right away. It's the same for me too.

It seems that for the matter this time Marquis Dasurain put on the ring and p.r.i.c.ked his finger with a pin just like when doing a contract. He said that while it made a wound no matter how hard he tried to press his finger no blood would come out. Furthermore the wound itself quickly sealed up. After that, the ring didn't display it's effect again that day.

The next day, this time he injured his finger with a pin without wearing the ring. After squeezing his finger obviously blood came out. After confirming that he immediately wore the ring. And then, the wound sealed up and obviously the blood stopped as well.

This is the exact same effect as the {Ring.Of.Protection} that was pa.s.sed down from the ancestors of the Dasurain family and since it also has the same name, he said that it lead him to believe it was really a ring with the exact same effect.

Hearing his story up to here I started to wonder about it a bit. I wonder if the "damage reduction" would still be effective even if it's damage you take before wearing the ring? In the first place you can't call wounding the tip of your finger with a pin damage. If it's damage that light(just the same as experience points, it's possible to think that there's such a thing as damage below a decimal point) then I wonder if it would be a target for the reduction if there's not much time between?

Additionally the friendly Marquis showed me the {Ring.Of.Protection} that was always pa.s.sed down through the generations in his family.

【Ring.Of.Protection】
【Gold.Sapphire】
【Condition: Normal】
【Manufacture Date: 16/10/7112】
【Value: 1】
【Durability: 49】
【Ability: Damage Recovery;1 HP】
【Effect: In the case that the target who equips this ring undergoes something where they receive damage to their HP, through the mana in the ring it can recover the damage taken by just 1 HP. The amount of damage it's possible to recover is up to 1 HP per day.】

Just the appearance is vaguely different and it looks really similar, even with my {Identify} the details are the same..or not.

However, without showing any sign of realizing that, I intentionally used the spell {Detect.Magic} and whispered as if showing admiration.

"Certainly it's a magic item..Excuse me, {Status Open}..Just as you said the name is the same as well."

Hearing my words the Marquis lightly nodded as he took the ring and started talking.

"Also, the reason I was confident it was exactly the same is because I confirmed it using a "special type of spell"."

That, that's it! What I wanted to hear about.

"Come to think of it you wrote about it in your letter right. What kind of spell is that "special type of spell"?"

"I'm sorry but I can't say that much. But, I'm sure it's difficult for you to accept just saying that. The "special type of spell" is a spell that compares the mana from two items. If you use this spell then you can compare the mana of {Magic.Items} you're holding in both of your hands."

..Ho? So there's a spell like that.

"So you were able to determine that they're the same using that spell?"

"That's right. These rings don't have any other ability than healing small injuries but I treasure them greatly. I'm happy that you were willing to sell it to me. Even more so if something that is pa.s.sed down in my family through the generations came from the 9th floor, deep in the dungeon that even the founding King didn't reach then it'll raise the character of it."

The Marquis put on the ring again while grinning.
Miduchi moved a bit uncomfortable next to me.

It seems that it appears as almost the exact same thing with that comparison spell. Also, we were able to confirm that even if this Marquis has a "special type of spell" it doesn't compare to my {Identify} unique ability. That's plenty. The only thing remaining is the slight doubts I have about the ability of the ring we found but in the first place it wasn't a significant ability so I'm sure there's nothing more to bother about with it.

After that we discussed the dungeon as we pleased for just a bit and excused ourselves from the room.

We split ways with Sandak Company's president after leaving the building.

............................

On the road towards the headquarters of Greed Company, I was discussing it with Miduchi.

"That minister, I guess his true intention was that he wanted to hear the story about how we obtained the ring right?"

Additionally after hearing that it came from the 9th floor it was just right for raising the status of the magic item that was pa.s.sed down through his family.

Hearing that Miduchi brought her horse close to my horse.

"Just..there was one thing."

"Hn? Was there anything bad?"

She approached my ear with a serious face and whispered.

"That person, he only lied on one part. The part about it "not having any other ability". Hey, that ring, I wonder if it really only had the ability you said..."

What?!?

Certainly we only just used {Identify} on it and didn't properly confirm the ability at all...
Though I understand the fact that {Identify} isn't perfect(or believed to be) but...