“How about it? Let’s start now.”
Seeing Roland beaming, Bard felt a wave of fury rise all the way to his chest and almost spurt out from his mouth in the form of curses.
However, he just said so himself: nobles still maintained the basic etiquette, so he could only hold back.
“There’s no rush, we can talk about this after we’ve rested for a day or two. After all, we’ve had a long journey, and we’re very tired,” Bard said with a blank face. “When a suitable time comes, we’ll come to find you.”
After saying this, Bard immediately turned to go down the stairs.
He feared that if he stayed any longer, he wouldn’t be able to hold back from hurling insults, losing his poise.
On the first floor, the unconscious magic apprentice woke up, muttering incoherent curses.
Bard frowned, walked down, and asked, “What’s the matter, not a single person was roped in?”
“There’s no one inside the Magic Tower.” Looking confused, the young noble mage standing in front said, “While you guys were having a chat, we even went up to the sixth, seventh, and eighth floor only to find no one there.”
Bard was stunned for a moment, then he sneered, “In other words, the people inside the Magic Tower already left? Was it Aldo’s handiwork or Roland’s? No matter who it was, our actions were all within their expectations. Interesting.”
“What do we do now?” the young noble mage asked.
“What else can we do!” Bard said bitterly. “We have to first find a place to stay. I’ve met with the mayor’s son John a few times—our relationship’s decent, let’s stay at his place for a few days before doing anything else. We can slowly think of ways to deal with that damned Roland.”
“It’s up to you,” the young noble mage said.
Soon after, the group left the Magic Tower, and before going out, Bard stared fiercely at the Magic Tower for quite a while.
Roland was on the eighth floor, and through the window, he watched them leave. When he was preparing to continue his magic experiments, he suddenly received a system notification from the guild.
Inside the guild Betta @’d Roland: “Quickly come to the 25th house on the east block, there’s an important matter.”
Roland replied, “What’s the matter?”
“An important quest, possibly a small scale dungeon.”
Dang! Roland felt his own unluckiness. Betta had quite the luck for triggering quests. Up until now, all the quests Roland completed were triggered by Betta.
A small scale quest wasn’t worth mentioning, but this one was actually a dungeon quest.
He immediately stood up and left the Magic Tower.
Of course, before leaving the Magic Tower, he used Hand of Magic to close the tower’s heavy stone door.
After all, if he left, there really would be no one inside the Magic Tower. Although normal people would feel reverence for a mages’ stronghold, some professional bandits didn’t care much. After the stone door was closed, only mental power could trigger the mechanism to open the door.
Generally speaking, bandits couldn’t enter.
Unless they grasped the high-level trap mechanism removal technique unique to the bandit class.
Roland hurried over to the 25th unit on the east block. At the entrance, a thin, yellow girl stood at the door, wearing a black-and-white maid outfit.
Upon seeing Roland, she bent down slightly and said, “Mr. Roland, Master Betta asked me to wait for you here.”
Roland sized up this young girl and discovered that her complexion looked a lot better. He said with a smile, “It looks like you’ve been doing well lately.”
The young girl revealed a smile. “This is all thanks to you and Master saving me.”
Then, she turned around and brought Roland into the house.
This was a second-hand house, the furniture inside readily available, and although it looked somewhat old and worn, it was very clean and tidy inside.
There was no one in the living room, but the sound of someone cooking came from the kitchen.
Roland found this somewhat strange. The maidservant bent down slightly in apology, and said, “Master is inside the kitchen. This is originally something that I should do, but the things I make are too unpalatable.”
The young girl hung her head, looking very disappointed and ashamed.
This was Betta’s maidservant. Roland wouldn’t console her—what if Betta was interested in her? Roland would be put in a suspicious position then.
Roland fetched himself a chair and sat down.
The young girl immediately served up a cup of warm water. Roland took a sip. Betta was definitely the one who taught her this kind of etiquette of serving guests with warm water.
After two sips, he saw Betta emerging from the kitchen with two small dishes.
The dishes were placed on the table. Roland discovered that one of the dishes was salted fried peas, and the other was cabbage and fried meat.
Then, the maidservant placed two yellowish-white chopsticks on the table.
The chopsticks were quite new, clearly recently made.
Finally, the maidservant carried two cups of fruit wine to the table.
“Eat, don’t stand on ceremony,” Betta said with a somewhat smug look.
“Frying vegetables!” Roland looked at the things on the table for a while and said, “These past two days, this is what you were fiddling with?”
Betta nodded. “After all, we Divine Nobles don’t need to learn skills the way mages do. Anyway, I have lots of time to explore this world. Besides, these past few days, I’ve gotten quite sick of eating the things here—the tavern’s cooking skills are too terrible. I honestly couldn’t stand it, so I requested a blacksmith to make an iron pan and spatula. Although the bottom of the pan is a little thick, under the heat of Fire Spewing, the pan can still be heated up quickly.”
Roland frowned at these words. “I discovered that your Fire Spewing is either used for roasting meat or stir-frying. It’s not being used for the proper purposes.”
“I actually feel that this is the proper way to use skills—to use them in daily life. Isn’t that much more interesting than using them in battle?”
“It’s not wrong to say so.” Roland picked up a slice of meat with his chopsticks and put it into his mouth, then let out a sound of surprise. “The flavor isn’t bad.”
Betta smiled quite smugly. “In this world where culinary skills are lagging behind, I’m a master chef.”
Roland clicked his tongue. He picked up a salted fried pea and placed it into his mouth, then took a drink of fruit wine. As expected, there was an indescribable refreshing sensation. Then, he asked curiously, “What’s up with the quest?”
“This is how things went down.” Betta ate as he spoke. “Roughly two hours ago, I was at the fair searching for ingredients that could be used for flavoring, like fresh ginger and things of that sort. In the end, I bumped into a bandit stealing a pedestrian’s wallet, so I chased the bandit down and gave him a beating. When I searched the wallet, I found a smelly parchment with some signs on it, then the dungeon quest was triggered.”
This luck... Roland shook his head helplessly.
This guy’s hidden talent should be great luck.
“Hold on, I’ll share the quest with you.”
After a few seconds, Roland received a system notification, and after he chose to accept the quest, he saw a purple quest on the system display bar.
Unlock The Secrets to Delpon’s Necropolis (party suggested) (recommended level 3).
It was actually a purple quest. Roland thought for a moment and said, “With only the two of us, it might be somewhat problematic. How about we add others?”
“Hawk and them?”
“Naturally,” Roland said and nodded.
Betta thought for a moment and said, “But that’s only four people; five people is the standard for a small party. Besides, we’re lacking a healer.”
“How about we go on the forums to search for a healer.” Roland pondered and said, “See if there are any priests near Delpon.”
Betta thought this was a good idea. “You can post about recruitment. After all, you’re more renowned.”
Roland contemplated this, then agreed. “Sure.”
At this moment, a faint smile surfaced on Betta’s face. “This should be the first dungeon quest on the whole server. Recruiting in the name of F6, this will definitely set off a heated discussion on the forums.”