Lord: Starting from a Goblin Nest

”No.” Victoria’s gaze fell. She unslung the shield from her back and unclipped a Hard Head Hammer from her waist. ”I don’t intend to stand by and do nothing.”

”If you dare to disrespect my companions, humiliate my comrades and friends, or try to sow discord among us again, I swear in the name of the Protector that I will make you bleed on the spot!”

When a Priest who wasn’t particularly aggressive, even in the heat of battle, said something like that, you knew she was truly enraged.

”No! How could you?!” Elden stared at Victoria in shock. ”I thought there would at least be one person here who was clear-headed, who followed tradition, rules, and etiquette!”

”You won’t even give Silvia and me a glance?” Aive asked Elden, feigning a look of grievance. ”We’ve had a formal education, at the very least.”

”What a shame,” Silvia said, looking down at the increasingly helpless Dwarf. ”You really shouldn’t have left your Ivory Tower. That way, you could have at least lived out the rest of your dull and flavorless days.”

”Maybe you could even cure your own ’fading’ before you die? I guarantee it would be a medical miracle.”

”Good heavens, Shuke!” Elden stumbled back two steps, unleashing his fury on his own student. ”Look what sort of place you’ve brought me to! This is nothing short of a den of thieves! No, a Demon Cave!”

”Goblins, Undead Creatures! What else is here? A Green Dragon or a Black Dragon?!”

”It seems you do have some age-old wisdom. Aiksuuri is in his lair, by the way,” Ron said, looking at Elden. ”You see, old-timer, I’m actually quite perplexed by your arguments.”

”You keep harping on about ’tradition,’ ’rules,’ and ’etiquette,’ yet you’re insolent to the master of this house, arrogant and rude to his friends, and you’ve even tried to drive a wedge between us?”

”Have you still not realized what’s wrong, you hidebound, block-headed, stupid, barbaric, crude, despicable, ill-mannered, half-dead, pale-faced maggot?”

”How dare you speak to me like that?!”

Elden jumped three feet in the air. If Delaford’s dagger wasn’t hovering in front of him, he probably would have charged Ron to fight to the death. ”I’ll make you pay for this! I’m expelling you!”

Ron replied, ”Hm? But I’m not a student at your Academy. How exactly do you plan on expelling me?”

”You are now!” The Dwarf whipped out a Scroll, hopped onto a nearby table, and began scribbling furiously. He then produced some Seal Paste and stamped the document. ”Ron! You are hereby a student of the new term at Elden Academy!”

”Huh?”

”And now, you are expelled!” Elden tore the admission notice to shreds, then shot Ron a proud look.

”Wha—?”

Ron was completely thrown by this sequence of baffling maneuvers. ’So you can do that?’ he thought, dumbfounded.

”Did you notice? He has a bit less white hair on his head now,” Silvia whispered in Ron’s ear. ”I suspect Shuke brought this old codger here hoping we’d help treat his ’fading syndrome’.”

Ron followed Silvia’s gaze and, sure enough, saw Shuke squeezing his eyes shut and making signals at him.

’No wonder he only made a token effort to mediate earlier before going completely silent.’

’But that was no good. Elden’s fading might be improving, but Ron and the others’ blood pressure was going through the roof!’

”I demand you take back what you just said! I’ve lived for four hundred years, and no one has ever dared to scold me like that!” Elden leaped in front of Ron, glaring furiously.

”Only after you take back your words,” Ron retorted, refusing to yield. ”You insulted my friends first! You brought this on yourself!”

Elden was old, after all. He had neither the quick tongue nor the Energy to outmatch a young man like Ron. Of course, he would never lower himself to apologize to Ron and Delaford, so they finally reached a ”truce”: they would pretend the previous exchange never happened and start over with introductions.

”Fine, let’s do it that way!” Elden said sullenly. ”My reason for coming here is actually very simple: what on earth is the method you used for that Weak Healing Potion?”

”Tell me! I only need the refinement step. I can pay ten thousand Gold Coins to buy the technique for just that one step!”

”Refinement? What refinement?” Ron and Elden stared blankly at each other. ”There is no refinement! Do you see any sort of refining equipment around here, old man?”

”Equipment? What equipment?” Elden was just as baffled. ”I want your ritual steps! What does that have to do with equipment?”

”Um...” Lavinia, who had been pulled from the workshop upon Ron’s return, tugged on his shirt. ”He’s probably talking about your concentration step. I tried explaining it to him for ages, but this old codger just refuses to believe it. He insists that there’s no non-Magic method to completely dissolve the raw material powder, and since I obviously couldn’t let him into the workshop to watch, he’s been making a scene ever since.”

”This has nothing to do with you, Half-Elf!” Elden’s old habits resurfaced as he yelled at Lavinia, ”Back to your lab, apprentice!”

”If you’re going to keep talking to my friends like that, you can forget about learning anything, even for a hundred thousand,” Ron said, curling his lip. ”Didn’t Lavinia already tell you? What’s so unbelievable about it?”

’Back then, I didn’t even know any Magic, so how could there have been any magical traces in the synthesis process?’ Lavinia had tweaked it a bit later, using some minor cantrips to improve efficiency.

’What was so hard to believe about that?’

”Impossible!” Elden shook his head like a rattle. ”To date, there are thirty-seven different conceptual Alchemy formulas for a Healing Potion, with a hundred and one branch derivatives, but not a single one can skip this step! All of them require ritual assistance!”

”You must have used some method to erase the magical traces, right? That’s fine! You can just tell me that much—I’ve never seen anyone take anti-counterfeiting and anti-tracking measures to this degree. Even I can’t reverse-engineer it!”

”His hair color looks a little more normal,” Silvia whispered. ”It seems four hundred years is far from his limit.”

”Then I’ll have to collect payment upfront,” Ron said, glancing at Shuke. ”Are you paying, or is he? It’s not that I’m a money-grubber, I’m just afraid this headmaster here will renege on the deal once he finds out the secret. It’s really just a matter of piercing a paper-thin veil; you’ve just grown so accustomed to relying on Magic rituals that you never thought of it.”

”All knowledge is a paper-thin veil, young man!” Elden lectured. ”But how many of those veils can a person see in a lifetime? How many can they pierce? You’re spouting nonsense!”

”Here! This is a Sub-Dimensional Bag.” Elden, with an air of extravagant wealth, unslung his sturdy leather backpack and tossed it to Ron. ”This Alchemist’s Backpack is divided into two compartments. The main compartment contains an Otherdimensional Space that can hold up to four hundred and fifty pounds of items with a volume not exceeding two cubic meters, while its own total weight will never exceed fifteen pounds—perfect for carrying cumbersome Alchemist equipment. The second compartment has preservation Magic to keep everyday ingredients, food, and drinks constantly fresh.”

”I’ve already used this backpack, so I’ll value it at three thousand Gold Coins for you. Shuke, you give him the other seven thousand, and you won’t have to make a donation at the next school anniversary.”