“You see that man? In this world that’s filled with debauchery and sin, we need more people like him,” I noted as I looked over a man with white robes walked down the street.

“Indeed, he devoted himself to a simple life and simply chose clean white robes with a plain old mask to cover his face. A sign of humility. He probably came from Aon, as well,” My friend commented.

“What sort of holy life had he been living? Just thinking of nothing but full devotion to the Goddess, fully living his life in humble temperament and status, doing nothing but singing the praises of the Godd-...” I stopped when I noticed the robed man walked into the red light district.

“Heh. Pay up. I won the bet.” My other friend chuckled behind us and we grumbled as we handed him coins.

.

.

.

The duke’s kid, Aeron, guided us into the city of Mierra but he needed to talk to his father so we agreed to meet at a tavern where we were staying the next morning. According to Aeron, the duke might take a day to clear up his schedule so he could meet us. Well, that was fine. We weren’t in a rush to go somewhere anyway. We decided to spend the day touring instead.

I sneaked away from the group to find a place to gamble. I had a pouch full of cash and I wanted to spend it! Without Sarjay, I could finally gamble! I’m an expert at this! I seriously didn’t know why Sarjay keep saying I’m bad at this.

As I explored the red light district, I went into a gambling house to try my luck. Many were playing a game that I’ve never seen before so I just watched. After I understood the rules, I confidently joined for a few games.

Since I was an Archlich, obviously I should had been smarter than every single one of these lowlife gambling their life away. So…

HOW THE HELL DID I LOSE ALL MY MONEY?!

“You damned bastard! Come back!” Some thugs were chasing after me. They were after me since I had a debt from playing too much after I gambled all my money in just a matter of hours. I ran through the alley and found myself surrounded by these thugs. Uh oh. They approached me menacingly. I prepared to extinguish their life with a snap of my fingers when someone called out to us.

“Hey, you thugs! Unhand that man!” A teenager with black hair and a dull face shouted at the thugs. He held out a sword and took a stance. Behind him were a few more teenagers around his age. They also took out their weapons. Were all teenagers in Angolia justice crazed?

“Oh, ho? You guys think you’re some kind of heroes?” The thugs turned their attentions to them.

“We don’t think we are. We actually are! Now, let go of him! He’s obviously an innocent man! A priest would never do evil!” He shouted.

“Well, actually, I’m not even…” I was trying to speak up before I got interrupted by the thug who ignored me.

“Shut it, kid! You don’t even know what the real world is! And I’ll really teach you what it is!” The thugs charged at the group of teenagers and they started fighting so I took this opportunity to run. Ha, suckers! Hopefully I didn’t have to meet those thugs or those dumb kids, who would probably get themselves killed, ever again.

By the time I came back to the tavern, I simply went to my bed and slept until morning. Like he promised, Aeron came back informing us that the duke was available today. Well, the duke probably wanted to have a long talk with me, but I hoped that he would just give me some money and we could be on our way. My companions wouldn’t give me any money.

We finished our breakfast and went to the duke’s castle. On the way to meet the duke, Aeron was telling me all sorts of story about the duke. Apparently he was a well-known adventurer who retired after he failed to attack an undead stronghold. Wait a minute…

Before I realized it, I was at the guest hall with the duke. He was a man in his 40s or 50s and his blond hair had a mix of white hair. He was still well-built despite his looks and had a kind smile.

“Welcome, savior. I heard from my son that you saved his life. How could I not meet him in person? I apologize that it took me a day to fix all my duties.” He came to hug me. It was a bit uncomfortable, I liked my personal space.

“You seemed rather skinny,” The duke commented.

“Ah ha ha, well...you know.”

“Oh, my apologize! I’m being rude to my guest. I meant no offense. As you might have already known, I’m Duke Lancel of Mierra. I’m a former adventurer who travelled the world vanquishing the undead,” He introduced himself. Well, this was awkward.

“Well, as for us...We’re just travellers. What happened to your son was partially our fault anyway.” I shrugged as I rested my hand on my sword’s hilt.

“Nonsense! Bloodied Rags are scums! And...wait….is that…?” He moved his sight to my sword.

“Hmm? What is it? Is there a bug crawling up my leg?” I checked where he was looking at.

“That sword...where did you get it?” Duke Lancel asked.

“Huh? I got it from the Black Mountain, I suppose. Is there any problem?” I asked back. I was getting a bit anxious where this was leading to.

“That sword, Fatebinder, is mine! I lost it against a battle against the lich of the Black Mountain! Could it be that you…” The duke had wide eyes. Wait, what?! This sense of familiarity was from that guy who I stole Fatebinder from?! Oh, no. Had he realized that I was the lich that beat him?! I gripped my sword.

“You...managed to defeat the lich!” Duke Lancel finished his sentence.

“Eh?”

“You managed to defeat the lich of the Black Mountain and took back the sword! Without a doubt, I was sure that you stole the sword back and used it to smite that unholy beast!” The Duke laughed as he patted my shoulder.

“Not many had managed to make it through the Black Mountain. Many tried to, but many had failed. You must be that good just to get through the Maze Forest,” He praised me. The Black Mountain was the place my stronghold resided in. Surrounding it was a forest which I built to confuse any invader with illusion magic. A lot of people would get lost but sometimes people tend to get lucky like that one subjugation army that managed to get through.

“Over the time we had lost hope and we simply quarantined the area. Aon volunteered many of its guards just to patrol the Black Mountain,” He explained. That must be why there was a random guard just patrolling an abandoned road back when we first started our tour. Luckily for us, he didn’t really think we were the undead of the Black Mountain itself.

Ah, well. There was no harm in just agreeing in what he said. What was the worse thing that could happen?

“I entrust Fatebinder to you, priest. Also, I urge you to join the heroes’ party,” He told me.

“Wait, what?”

“Go to the capital and join the heroes. I heard that they’re going to receive their divination in a few weeks. I’ll join you on the way to the capital, I’d like to personally tell King Argo about this,” He excitedly told me.

“No, wait. Hold on. I have no intentions of becoming a hero or joining a party for heroes. I’m not a hero. I just want to travel.” I shook my head crazily trying my best to deny.

“Nonsense. The fact that you saved my son from Death’s Door and take out the Bloodied Rags? That’s hero quality. The way you’re so humble about it is touching...very hero-like.” Duke Lancel nodded his head proudly like I was his son or something.

“Also, I’m sure that the king would reward you for saving my son. King Argo is an old friend of mine, you see. So you should come to the capital either way,” The duke insisted. Well, whatever. I had a free ticket to the capital with this. It’ll delay my visit to Follis, but I’m sure Sarjay wouldn’t mind. I turned to discuss with my companions who were taking pictures of the paintings on the wall.

“Alright, so. Here’s the thing, I’m heading to the capital but it’s pretty far. So it’s better if I just went by myself and perhaps Lucia,” I explained.

“What about us?” Daggerless asked.

“You’re free to go around, but we’ll all meet at Follis. Understood?” I explained. The group didn’t have problems with it. They spared me some coins, Goddess bless them, and I agreed to come with the duke to the capital.

The plan was that I get the reward from the king, refuse the offer to join and quickly check the capital out so that when our entire group visits the capital again, we’ll know where to go first instead of aimlessly walking around until we get to somewhere interesting.