Unsurprisingly, the five were left at a loss for words thanks to Valyr’s response. After all, according to what they knew and what they were told, everyone that was informed of their candidacy to the Four Pillars’ Inheritance agreed without hesitation. Heck, even being invited to the Imperial Production Guild alone was enough for them to unhesitatingly agree on what the other side had to say.
With that in mind, it took a while for Valyr’s words to register within the minds of the five, with Madeline being the first to pose the question that started to linger within the group’s minds. “Why decline?”
“As I’ve just said, I appreciate the offer.” In response to the question, Valyr bitterly smiled. “However, I have no choice but to decline for now since I still have something to do within this city.”
“Does it have something to do with the smithy we’re currently in?” asked Braum as he gave Valyr a curious glance.
Hearing Braum’s question, Valyr shook his head. “If that was the only thing shackling me down to this city, then I would have already agreed to your invitation in the first place. After all, I just need to find someone to take my place as the blacksmith for this smithy.”
“That means you’re the owner of this smithy?” Listening to Valyr’s response, Paul looked at the man with slight incredulity, who nodded back at him in response to his question. Naturally, the five stared at Valyr for a while, looking at him as if the man that stood before them was a monster, only to then remember…
He was one.
Of course, not in the literal sense. In their minds, Valyr was a monster in the sense of being a prodigy in combat, which they saw firsthand earlier in the coliseum, as well as being a prodigy in forging to the point of having his own smithy.𝑶𝔳𝓵xt.𝑐𝚘𝐌
Recalling the main reason once more as to why they had been tasked to find Valyr and escort him back to the kingdom, it did not take long for the five to come to terms with the idea, nodding in unison as Madeline opened her mouth once more. “Then… what’s stopping you?”
“A quest,” said Valyr in response, a calm expression on his face. “To be more specific, it used to be a quest that involved a small problem that the city wanted to get rid of. However, it’s now turned into a quest wherein the entire city is at stake if I and another person don’t resolve it.”
“Is that so?” Though Valyr heard these words came out of Braum’s mouth, he didn’t feel any disappointment in it whatsoever. In fact, the feeling that they gave off at the moment had no hints of disappointment at all. Instead, what he felt was…
Relief?
“And here we thought you had to take care of something beyond our capabilities.” Feeling as if a weight had been removed from their shoulders, there was a slight carefree air surrounding the five as Braum had a light smile on his face. In response, Valyr felt that Braum’s words seemed kind of odd, especially towards the end of his statement.
Fortunately, it did not take long for him to put two and two together as something clicked in Valyr’s mind, looking at the five with a hint of excitement as he glanced back at the five for confirmation.
Seeing as they nodded back at him, Valyr let out a bit of laughter, deciding to ask the five outright to dispel his doubts. “Are you serious?”
“We were also informed by the guild that we were to help you out in any way in order for you to arrive at the kingdom as early as possible.” With Paul responding to his question, Valyr inwardly let out a long sigh of relief as he pondered over how he could use the help of the five in completing the City Quest he and Tryndall had received.
Then again, formulating a plan involving the five did not need a lot of in-depth thinking, a light grin flashing on his face as he told the five to stay where they were for now. After that, he distanced himself somewhat from the five before opening up the chat function.
“Hey, Tryndall. Any progress on finding out who the mastermind is?” Sending this message to Tryndall, Valyr expected the latter to take a while in responding, thinking that he might be busy with some other matters in the meantime. However, what he got instead was a quick reply back from Tryndall, answering the question he had just asked.
“What a coincidence! I was just about to contact you sometime later regarding the same thing.” Reading this part of Tryndall’s message, Valyr inwardly let out a chuckle. “Though, before I continue, congrats on winning the duel. Those guys from the emporium totally deserve it.”
“Anyways, with the lead you’ve given me yesterday regarding the connection between the forging emporium and the mastermind of the incident, we were actually able to narrow it down to one person thanks to the help of the suspect that chose to help us out.”
“Let me guess… Lucas Hekaetos?” With a light smirk creeping up on his lips, Valyr sent back a reply to Tryndall, who swiftly responded back to tell him that he was correct, as well as ask him how he came to that conclusion before he and the suspect could.
In response, Valyr told him about the sudden quest he had gotten before the duel, the information he obtained due to completing the sudden quest, as well as the connection between the duel, the forging emporium, and Lucas.
“So, what do we do now that we have this information?” After Valyr was finished explaining his side of the story, Tryndall went ahead and sent a message back, asking him as to what they should do next. In response, Valyr let out a faint chuckle as he composed his response.
“Naturally, we apprehend him and find out the truth directly from the source.”
“And how are we going to do that? As far as I know, Lucas is a veteran Rank 3 class holder. We can’t surmount that gap that easily.” Of course, even though Tryndall was on board with Valyr’s idea, he still asked the latter the specifics of how they were going to do just that, wanting to make sure his friend did not let their progress get to his head.
“Oh, we can.” Grinning, Valyr sent a message back to Tryndall. “In fact, I already have a plan on how we’ll do just that.”
“However, there’s no need for us to rely on reconnaissance and stealth anymore.”
“Instead, we’re going all out on power.”