“Greetings Durgan, really what a coincidence. You are right; we are also looking for a legacy here.”
Kermu was happy that the other party was Durgan’s group. If it weren’t for the Larken Clan’s order that forced their five members to group together, Kermu would have invited some of them to his group.
“I see that you have two new members in your group, you should have recruited them among the commoners, right? Are they good enough to move you?”
Kermu couldn’t tell Yale’s true identity as a Zhan Clan’s descendant, and he also didn’t want to tell Yale’s prowess with the sword; if they knew about it, even revealing his status as a member of the Zhan Clan wouldn’t stop the Larken Clan’s interest in him.
“The boy is called Yale, he appeared in the same place as our group and wasn’t affected by the space-time passage, he showed a good moral character, so we decided to recruit him.”
Kermu didn’t dare to lie as the Larken Clan hate liars and they were good at detecting lies, but the reason they recruited Yale was indeed that so he didn’t need to worry.
“Oh, not bad. And that girl?”
Kermu thought a bit before replying.
“She is Yale’s disciple, we found her by coincidence, and as Yale didn’t want to let her alone in the special realm, we let her join the group.”
Kermu tried to don’t focus too much on the disciple part; after all the other party knew very well how helps to have a disciple when one wanted to advance to the expert stage.
“Is that Yale that valuable that you even let his disciple join the group?”
Letting join an outstanding commoner was alright, but to also let join the group that commoner’s disciple wasn’t that normal.
Kermu was starting to have a headache because even if Yale was indeed impressive, they let Aizu join because they knew Yale’s true identity and his skill that could manipulate the time was extremely useful for saving lives.
After all, Aizu was only a lucky girl in the special realm who had managed to obtain some legacies. She didn’t show enough talent to catch the nobles attention even if she was above the average commoners inside the realm.
“He saved our lives at the start; there were traps hidden by illusions that our artifacts couldn’t detect. However, he used his immunity to illusions and managed to save our lives before we had a pathetic death due to the traps covered by illusions.”
Kermu didn’t tell the reason of letting Aizu join, he only said something about Yale’s usefulness to the group that was true. Furthermore, even if that kind of immunity would be precious to any clan, to the Larken Clan as long as it wasn’t about swordsmanship they wouldn’t care enough to recruit him.
“No wonder you value him that much, that type of immunity is really strange.”
The reason Kermu said to him was enough to let the disciple of the commoner join the group. After all, in such dangerous environment being able to see through illusions was a great advantage.
Even if the Larken Clan’s group hadn’t found any trap covered by illusions before, they believed that such trap could exist as Kermu didn’t seem to be lying.
Lying to the Larken Clan was a grave offense, and even the other clans would avoid to do it.
Durgan looked well at Yale and noticed that he had a sword at his waist.
“Kid, you are also a swordsman?”
Yale didn’t reply immediately; he had noted that Kermu was acting strangely while speaking. Kermu was avoiding mentioning anything about his identity which was obvious as they need to hide it from the outsiders, but he was also trying to hide the fact that Yale was a swordsman.
When Durgan had said, the word “swordsman” Kermu’s face had changed a bit which confirmed to Yale his guess.
However, Kermu also didn’t tell any lie when speaking, so Yale was thinking about how would be the best way to reply to Durgan when Aizu opened her mouth.
“Greetings exalted nobles, my master is a great swordsman, he even managed to teach me even with my lack of talent.”
Aizu said that while bowing, she thought that was an excellent opportunity for Yale as some nobles were showing interest in him. Of course, Aizu didn’t know anything about the Larken clan nor about Durgan’s sister.
Kermu’s face was weird after Aizu spoke, he was just happy because Yale didn’t reply immediately and was thinking his words when Aizu spoke and revealed it.
“Oh, so he is really a swordsman. Kermu how can you hide it from me? You should also know his level of swordsmanship, right?”
Kermu didn’t know what to say. If he lied, then he would be in problems with the Larken Clan and would lose Durgan’s friendship, Kermu had already offended him by rejecting to marry his little sister. However, as the reason was that he was already engaged, and Kermu was a loyal guy, Durgan had forgiven him.
On the other hand, there wasn’t any valid reason to offend him at that moment by lying. If the Larken clan took an interest in Yale, even if it was somewhat troublesome to deal with it didn’t have to be bad to Yale.
If he obtained the Larken Clan support, the Zhan Clan faction that hated Yale’s mother would have a more rough time to act against him.
Kermu decided to tell the truth, at most after returning to the Imperial City and solving the problems about Yale’s identity he would help him to deal with the Larken Clan if they pester him too much.
“Yale is also at the expert stage in swordsmanship.”
After Kermu said those simple words, Durgan’s face lightened. It was very strange for a commoner to reach the expert stage at such young age.
“Your name was Yale, right? For reaching such level at such young age you should be talented, but you should also have a master, right? Can you tell me his or her name?”
Yale saw how Durgan expression changed after knowing that he had reached the expert stage, he felt that Durgan could become troublesome to deal, but at the same time he didn’t seem a bad guy, and Yale didn’t want to lie about his master’s identity.
“My master is called Swordmad.”
Durgan’s face was thoughtful after hearing Yale’s words.
“Swordmad. Swordmad, where I heard that name before?”
After a few seconds, he spoke again.
“I remember it now! The elders of the clan mentioned that name a few times before! They tried to recruit him in the past, but he refused and left the Imperial City.”
The others were surprised that Yale’s master was someone who even the Larken Clan had the interest to recruit, but after thinking a bit, given Yale’s prowess with the sword, the fact his master was also impressive wasn’t that strange.
“After all it was good that he left, he managed to bring back a good disciple. Even if he is already old, it doesn’t matter as the clan never gave up on recruiting him; both of you could join the clan together. To swordsmen like us being in a sword focused clan is the best. You don’t need to hesitate, as Kermu talked high of you I can even let you marry my little sister, her talent in the sword is the highest we have seen since our clan was founded. Furthermore, even if I shouldn’t tell it, she is very pretty.”
Durgan seemed extremely confident in his sister’s looks, but Yale didn’t know what to reply to the unending words of Durgan, he couldn’t believe that Durgan was already trying to marry him to his little sister after having just met.
“Moreover, the clan elders said that my sister’s current appearance is almost the same as my mother in her young days. You should know, that after she grew up, my mother was famous in the imperial city as the Sword Beauty, my father had enough luck to marry her. He is still boasting about it to his friends.”
Durgan had an extreme good opinion about his family, and he was decided to find a talented guy to help her sister’s temperament.
As Kermu valued Yale high enough to try to hide his true talent from him, Durgan felt that he was even better than he had explained, even if Kermu didn’t lie to him, he also didn’t tell all about Yale.
If Yale wasn’t impressive enough, there was no chance that his little sister would accept him, in that case, he should only look for another girl for Yale, the Larken Clan was big after all.
The difficult thing was finding someone who wanted to marry his sister, even if she was still too young, she only turned more aggressive as she grew up, the clan feared that if they waited too much in engaging her, no one would accept her for fear of being beaten to death.