It was late afternoon when Adrian arrived at Shinon’s place. With his armour gone, he needed sothing to replace it as soon as possible. Since it was unlikely he would receive another reward soon, he decided Shinon would be his best bet.
"I just hope he isn’t too busy with other orders," Adrian mumbled, walking through the gates.
Adrian, expecting the usual scene of people working under Shinon, was instead t with a surprising sight. All of them were huddled around a single workstation.
Usually, every artisan had their own workstation, which they used to perfect a craft, but this ti, they were all gathered in one space.
[The higher entity, Creator of Deford Perfection, can’t contain his excitent and urges the User to hurry and see what’s happening.]
Adrian read the notification and sighed. This particular entity was always in high spirits whenever he visited Shinon. But given his fascination with blacksmithing, Adrian discovered who the possible entity could be.
’...your love for smithing must be the reason Aphrodite keeps cheating on you, old man.’
Although the old man couldn’t hear Adrian’s words, it wouldn’t have affected him much if Adrian had told Hephaestus the sa thing face-to-face.
After all, he was soone who didn’t hesitate to publicly sha the god of war for what happened between him and Aphrodite, and that was enough for the gods to know not to ss with him. So why would soone like him take offence to a mortal’s words?
’How do you know about that?’ Adrian asked, surprised that Lucina knew about Hephaestus’s revenge on Aphrodite.
’Fair enough.’
[The higher entity, Creator of Deford Perfection, urges the User to hurry.]
’Alright, Alright!’ Adrian replied and rushed to take a look.
To his surprise, the artisans weren’t working there but watching Shinon work his magic. It was pretty rare to see Shinon while he was working, so it was obvious a crowd had gathered around as soon as he had donned the apron to work.
[The higher entity, Creator of Deford Perfection, is in awe of the blacksmith’s abilities and asks the User’s help to make the individual his apostle.]
’Just send him your offer,’ Adrian replied. ’I ain’t your cupid of work.’
[The higher entity, Creator of Deford Perfection, is in disbelief and argues that the User previously helped a certain entity form a bond with a mortal.]
’I did because the deal benefitted ,’ Adrian shrugged, planning to extort Hephaestus. ’If you want my help, then pay up.’
[The higher entity, Sin of Greed, is laughing maniacly.]
[The higher entity, Sin of Pride, shakes his head at the User’s greed.]
Adrian was acting greedy, so obviously, Greed was more than happy. But for Pride, it was almost like Adrian was begging for things, which was unbecoming of soone of his calibre.
Unfortunately, Adrian didn’t seem to care. As long as he could exploit the situation to his advantage, he would, regardless of the circumstances. Besides, Hephaestus was clearly desperate to recruit Shinon, so why wouldn’t he seize the opportunity to gain sothing from their deal?
’I an... even brokers get their share, so why shouldn’t I?’
[Countless entities are rendered speechless by the User’s shalessness.]
Just then, Shinon placed the hamr down and noticed Adrian. Without a second thought, he rushed to him, leaving his admirers behind.
"What a pleasant surprise!" Shinon said, fist-bumping Adrian. "I thought I wouldn’t see you for a while after what happened a couple days ago. So what can I do for you?"
"Um... are you sure you’re free?" Adrian asked, looking at the artisans, who were staring daggers at him as if he had stolen their insurance money.
"What are you talking about?" Shinon waved his hands dismissively, walking out of the workshop. "Ignore them; they always act like this. That’s why I do most of the work when I’m alone in the workshop."
Adrian was about to ask him to make an armour set when his phone rang. He glanced at the screen and was surprised to see Rick’s na flashing. Rick was not the type to call without a pressing reason, so Adrian quickly answered.
"Hello?"
"I hope you weren’t busy," Rick’s voice echoed from the other end.
"Not as busy as you are," Adrian chuckled. "What is it?"
"Do you rember Vex, the girl Seraphina caught?"
"What about her?"
"...I’ll be straightforward with you," Rick sighed. "Vex won’t talk. I’ve tried everything, both legal and otherwise, but she won’t budge."
He continued, "Even our mages failed to extract anything from her mind. It’s as if she’s blocking every attempt to make her spill the beans."
"I see..."
Adrian was hopeful when he learned that Seraphina had captured Charles’s partner. With her, it would’ve been easy to expose Maria as long as she opened her mouth.
’It’ll be a problem if she doesn’t give in...’
Vex was the only way Adrian could deal with Maria once and for all. But what would happen if she didn’t cooperate. She’d probably be sentenced to death by the courts, and that’ll be it.
People would be happy thinking the culprit got punished when the mastermind of the attacks would remain untouched.
’No wonder Maria didn’t panic and did anything reckless even though she knew Vex was caught,’ Adrian sighed inwardly.
’Maria knew we’d never be able to make Vex talk, and doing anything to rescue her would only cause trouble for her. So she left her to her fate.’
"Adrian...?"
"I’m here," Adrian replied. "I’ll swing by the HQ and see if I can do sothing about it."
"I’d appreciate it," Rick replied, disconnecting the call.
"Looks like you have places to be," Shinon said. "Go, deal with whatever that call was about. We can deal with your situation later."
"It shouldn’t take long," Adrian replied, walking towards the exit. "But I’ll appreciate it if you can prepare so armour designs while I’m gone!"
"Roger," Shinon smiled. "I think I have just the thing you’d like."
Reviews
All reviews (0)