They arrived at the gates of the city, accompanied by the uncertainty of having committed a mistake. They left the refugees back at a village, where Lourgh said they would be safe. Now, at the gates of the city, they had started to think about Argrand sending an extermination party toward the village.

They crossed the gates without trouble, acting like nothing more than peasants in a rush to buy goods at the market. They paid the entry tax and strolled inside. Since they couldn't be bothered with the mundane aspects of the city, they headed straight for the adventurers' guild guided by the old man by the name of Lourgh.

As soon as they saw the old man kicking open the swinging doors of the establishment, Suu and Thom had already prepared to do the same. They kicked the doors open to mix with the regulars, but only received extremely worried looks coming from three dozen eyes.

The place looked a common bar, except for hundreds of papers messily nailed on the walls.

They ignored the adventurers eyeing them and got close to Lourgh, who was already speaking with the bartender.

"Oh, come on. Ain't ya glad to see an old friend? Help the gentleman and I'll owe you, Markth." Lourgh smiled as he moved his hands around the place, but the bartender didn't seem to pay him any heed. As soon as the black-haired party got near the counter, the man's face twisted even further.

"I couldn't care less about you owing me, get lost." He scoffed. "I'm not getting into trouble because of some unknown man claiming to be a prince."

"Do you doubt my status? What could get you to think otherwise, sir?" Thom smiled, placing his elbow on the counter.

"Don't try to bribe me, kid." The man shook his head. "I've been in this business for a long time. If you wanna make a trade, you better make it goo—"

"I'll buy your establishment."

Surprisingly, the one to say those words wasn't Thom, but Suu. The young black-haired prince looked at his sister with an impressed gaze, seeing how not only had the bartender shut up, but the whole place had gone completely silent. A malevolent grin crept up in Thom's face, and he grabbed Suu by the neck with an arm.

"Now, now, dear sister. Let's not get hasty. This isn't our kingdom anymore, we can't spend our allowance like this... Actually, we don't have an allowance anymore."

"Right..." The bartender frowned as he made the cups glimmer spotless. "Hmph. Not even if you gave me a hundred gold I would hand over this place!"

"Kyakya!" Lourgh laughed out loud. "The royals sure know how to make a ruckus, don't they? Come on, Markth, help the kids!"

"I said no!" The bartender placed down the beer cup with a slam and picked another one.

"Well, if you excuse me for a moment..."

Thom pulled Suu to a side of the bar where they could calmly talk, but they wouldn't be dumb enough to talk in Kuulkiam. Without telling anything to each other, the conversation suddenly turned to their own language, and the curious eyes around the room flinched as if their peeking had been ruined.

"How much gold can you spend?" Suu asked while pointing at the bag.

"I still have about seven hundred million unmarked golden coins, give or take."

"So we don't have to worry about money. Alright, I was scared I had suddenly made a reckless decision. But, hey, that amount of money— what were you planning on buying?" Suu's eyebrows twitched as she crossed her arms.

"A castle?" Thom sneered.

"I think you could buy Pontya with that amount! But that doesn't matter, is it actually a good idea buying an establishment when we're in a supposed cover mission?"

"I mean, if anything, it reinforces our status as royals of a nation, no?" Thom smiled.

"Alright... We buy it, then what? Are we getting papers of ownership? What will we do with a high-traffic place like this afterwards? Actually, do we even need this man to begin with? If we're talking about bribing people into letting us inside the castle, bribing the guards and the knights is way easier."

"You're making my head hurt, Suu." The young man sighed. "I already know you're smarter than me, don't brag. But... okay, here is what we'll do."

After speaking for a while about the matter, Suu's face started to become softer. She had started to think her hasty decision hadn't been incorrect, and so, she ended up agreeing with Thom's plan. When they both got close to the counter again with evil chuckles, the bartender cringed back and rolled his eyes. However, that quickly changed when Thom opened his mouth with a big grin.

"We'll buy it for two hundred gold!"

"What?!"

All the chairs in the bar rustled as the adventurers cried out in surprise. The bartender's face went completely pale as he let go of his cup. The man named Lourgh was looking at them with the same awe-struck gaze, and even some people had started to heavily pant at the mention of such a sum.

"When... When I said a hundred before... I was kidding."

"Hm?" Thom innocently tilted his head. "Is it too little? Alright. Two hundred and fifty, is that okay?"

The man's breath seemed to escape his lungs. He started nervously looking around as if he had no idea what to do, and when his eyes were met with the adventurers', it became even worse. He had apparently gotten very nervous, and very quick.

"You will forgive the fact that they're not marked, but I can confirm they are authentic. You see, I do come from a place where it is very difficult to engrave gold, since we have too much and it would be quite the pain. If you do not believe me, you can hire an expert to appraise them. I'm sure someone will be willing to check even these many coins with the right tip."

Thom started to pull bundles of stacked-up coins, ten in each pile, and placed them on the counter in front of the bartender. One could see how Markth aged with every bundle that was placed on the table, and sweat started pouring in buckets from the man's forehead, neck, and back. The adventurers' were licking their lips with covetous eyes. Lourgh sighed with a smile.

"Royalty is always imprudent, I see. You shouldn't have done this in front of so many people."

"Hmm? Why not?" Suu asked, faking complete obliviousness to the dangers of such trade.

"Don't worry, old man. If someone tries to take this money from you, I'll deal with them personally." Thom placed the twenty-fifth and last pile of coins on the table, and reached for his sword. He pulled from the coiling snakes to reveal the blade hiding inside the white scabbard, making everyone swallow dry as soon as they saw the pitch-black blade glimmering with the light of the embedded amethysts. They had apparently recognized the metal.

"A... Alright. I'll go and... search for the property permission papers... They have a few clauses you should read and... Talk to the baron about. This establishment is neutral ground, so we don't answer to the nobles or royalty and... Well, I'm sure you'll get it."

The barman ran into the back of the store, and Thom rested his elbow on the counter with a satisfied smile.

"Hmph." Lourgh shook his head. "You might have done something great without thinking. The adventurers' guild is a neutral ground managed by several people. They have a few franchises in Kulkus, and other few in the neighboring countries. The guild manager of a certain region can pass-on responsibilities... But it's usually not this easy. They're usually given to capable adventurers when the former manager retires. Besides, this kind of trades are usually made in the office in the second floor, boy. Are you two really that imprudent?"

"I thought it was a necessary measure." Thom sneered.

"Uwah... I just wanna own the franchise, not be the manager. Big bro, can we hire someone else to watch over the local?" Suu pulled from Thom's sleeve as she asked.

"Of course." He nodded. "I don't plan us to stay here for much longer after our business with the baron is done."

"Kekek, young people really are excellent. Doing whatever you please, is it? Even after you've left such a big mess in this place, you're leaving just like that."

The bartender came back with several scrolls that included property papers, permits, instructions and other similar things. Thom accepted them without much care and shoved them inside his bag. Then, before the bartender or Lourgh could say anything, he stretched his hand towards Markth.

"By the way, it so happens that I'm searching for a secretary. Your job will basically be doing everything you've been doing up until now." He smiled.

"Ah... I—" Markth couldn't figure wether to stretch the prince's hand or not, and Suu was quick to catch the doubt in the man's face.

"The payment is one gold per month." She leaned on the man with a smile.

The man immediately got a hold of Thom's palm without a second thought, and hurriedly shook his hand with a smile. Thom was quick to give him a 20-month advancement. Not because he was being kind, he simply didn't want to forget later on.

Thanks to their actions, Markth seemed to think of Thom as an actual prince. With this new light shed on him, he served the party of royals a glass of his finest whiskey, and they gladly accepted it. They drank the whole glass at the same time with one shot and put it back on the table as if they had drunk measly water. They got looks of disbelief from all tables, but decided to ignore them.

"So even this won't get us drunk..." Thom sighed while his index finger moved along the edge of the glass.

"It's our own fault... We've been drinking a destructive amount of alcohol ever since we departed from Pontya. I didn't expect [Poison Resistance] to evolve so much with just alcohol poisoning, hehe..." Suu's eyes were devoid of any life as she bitterly smiled. Her liver would start its job in a few minutes, only that several times stronger than any human liver could ever work.

"Well, boys, you're rather enthusiastic, but this old man's gotta go." Lourgh chugged a shot of whiskey, tipped the glass and stood up from the table. "I got some business to take care of. My family ain't gonna secure itself, and Argrand will know sooner or later that his little trade was taken down. Again, thank you for everything. I hope our paths cross again soon."

The old man walked out of the building with hasty and worried steps. Thom and Suu nodded at each other, and quickly went to fetch Markth.

"Hey, I'm sorry, but we gotta make this quick." Thom put his hand on Markth's shoulder, a man significantly taller than him. "We're really desperate to form ties with anyone that could help us renew our kingdom, you see."

"Oh! I see! Yes, makes sense. Then, I will arrange it so that you can have a meeting with the baron this week. I have to go talk to my friends who are knights at the baron's house and all the like. You understand it, don't you?"

"Yes, we do. It is true that commoners usually go through a long and tortuous process to get selected for an audience, but we do not have that much time. We're royalty, you see. What I actually wanna say is..." Suu sleazily stepped forward with a drag of her feet. "How much gold would it cost for you to turn that this week into a today?"

A smile appeared on her face at the end of that tempting sentence.

Slam!

After yet another moderate sum of money was handed over, Suu and Thom were welcomed inside the citadel of the city. At this point, their faces had been seen by so many people that if they were to carry on with the assassination of the baron, they wouldn't even be prosecuted by the law or the church, but simply hunted down and killed for the crime.

The garden laid out around the small castle was beautiful enough that Thom had wanted to lay down in the rose patch and sleep, but there was no time for such things at all. They were guided up a cobbled path into a flight of stairs that led to a decently sized gate, which was open by two of the knights at the sides. They were taken inside to be met by a well-dressed butler, standing on top of a red carpet that extended across the whole receiving area.

Although the castle wasn't especially big, it was still more impactful than Piston's manor. Thom couldn't help but sigh in awe, and at the same time, feel repulsion from the fact that this was a noble's domain.

On the way towards the baron's office, they had managed to see at least twelve men armored with expensive plates, carrying polearms with ends that did not seem to be made out of regular iron or steel. Their tall figures and oppressive auras, each comparable to Thom's and Suu's, were the first thing to be screwed into the black-haired party's heads.

Since they had both managed to get a glimpse of the full plates and halberds carried by the knights inside of the castle, the intention to kill the baron had gone below zero and into negative numbers.

The fact that the two of them could easily kill a dozen men by themselves could give them, indeed, some confidence in their skill. However, so far, the battles they had won heavily relied on the enemy not being able to pierce their skin, so they could make a full-frontal assault. In such situations, the enemy wasn't wearing anything more complicated than iron half-plates or similar.

A dozen men with steel plate and probably deep iron or deep steel halberds? We'd be dead in no time.

Suu seemed to think the same as he did, so Thom didn't make a big deal about it as they were ushered by the butler into the second and last floor of the castle. They were signaled to a wooden double door, which the butler carefully opened and insisted for them to go inside.

With a deep sigh, the both of them entered the room, and their eyes were first laid on the desk beside the window.

A deep-brown wooden desk with several papers spread across of it, together with the indispensable empty containers upon empty containers of ink, with a few filled ones around, and broken up quills by their side. Books of all sorts were piled up beside the desk, perhaps for the baron to look intellectual, or because he actually had enough time to read even with such a mortifying amount of paperwork.

Behind the disorganized desk was a man, clad in fine clothes and with luscious but dyed blond hair touching his shoulders, mixing with his gray and trimmed beard. Decorations like rings adorned his fingers, the ones he had crossed together and pressed against his mouth with a condescending gaze. Mocking curiosity, that was the feeling Thom and Suu felt from this man.

They frowned deeply while approaching the chairs in front of the desk, and each took a seat. They crossed their arms over their chest, and smiled. The baron sneered as he closed his eyes, shrugging as well, just to add a bit more of annoyance to his already irritating image. He opened his mouth very slowly, before a sigh, and said:

"So you are the two—"

"Are you that baron Argrand we've been hearing about?"

As if they had rehearsed it beforehand, Thom and Suu cut off the baron at the same time, making him back away with a dazed expression.