Ch 33: Yet Another Hero

"That guy looks a little familiar." Sigurd said.

"That's because he's a bit infamous around the district. He's Mathys Lamara, his father is the finance minister of our district." The blue haired woman said.

"Oh that little prick. And I mean that literally. There's all kinds of stories about him throwing his dad's influence and wealth around." Sigurd said.

As a lover of different women, Sigurd had come across a few that had encounters with the young master. None of them were any good.

"Oh bytheway, my name's Leilah. I'm with the Myrkah Trade Company." The blue haired woman said.

"What? Sigurd, why are you with the en… competition?" Aisling said.

The two of them started laughing after a moment.

"The merchants in our companies might compete against each other for coins; we just guard them." Leilah said.

"Give it a few years and you'll understand people in our position aren't competition. Other than a few dumbasses, we watch out for each other outside the City of Gates." Sigurd said.

"Sigurd." Haydn came over and drunkenly wrapped herself around Sigurd's other arm.

"You need to come see this. Someone's taken an interest in our little Derbail and she has the most adorable face of embarrassment." Haydn said.

"Well we can't have that now can we." With the two women on his arms, Sigurd walked over to where a man was talking to Derbail.

They could see the two men having a heated discussion before Derbial tapped the other man on the back of his head and he slowly closed his eyes and laid his head on the table. The four of them then made their way up to the rooms.

Baldeur sighed internally. That man was living his dream of many lives. One day soon he'd live that life as well.

"How could they just all accept the same man like that?" Aisling said.

Before Baldeur could respond, a middle aged man interrupted them.

"My dear, you have caught the attention of his honorable Mathys Lamara. My young master wishes for you to join him for a drink." The man said.

The confused Aisling looked over at Mathys. His group had taken over a few tables in a far corner. He still had two women cuddling up to him and a few others close by. He was looking in her direction and gave her a smile.

Through clenched teeth Aisling said. "I'll pass. He looks like he has enough company at the moment."

"Perhaps you aren't aware of…" He began.

"I said, I'll pass." As she said that, Aisling began to release her aura of wrath sending a chill down the man's spine.

The man then quickly walked back to his young master.

"You know you can't recharge your Infernius. So you might want to be a little more care… full…" Baldeur slowly stopped talking as he saw the look she was giving him.

The tension between the two was broken as a golden disc with a diamond in the middle of the table.

"Since you're from the City of Gates, there's no way you don't know who I am. What you might not know is that I have both Mana and Anodular as Sources. This qualified me to fulfill one of this world's prophecies.

"I have a large group of adventures both from our city and from this world. Just one look and I can tell that you are more than capable of joining us. So, what do you say? I can offer you any number of benefits." He eyed her up and down during that last part.

As Baldeur felt her wrath rising, he decided to try and deescalate the situation. He picked up the disc to hand it back, but paused a moment as he felt a spell contained within. Quickly gathering himself, Baldeur handed it back to him.

"She's currently already under contract and already said she's not interested." The hair on the back of Baldeur's head started to stand on end as Aisling turned her glare to him.

"Whatever contract he has you under, I can double it. This is a once in a lifetime offer that you won't regret." Mathys said.

Aisling breathed in deeply. She understood that she couldn't offend this idiot at the moment.

"Forgive me but I'm not the type of person that will break a contract." Aisling said.

"Humph. This guy isn't anything compared to me. You're throwing away a big opportunity right now." Mathys said.

He took his disc and walked back to his group. Baldeur watched him trying to determine if this really would be the end of this, or if he was one of those guys that wouldn't take no for an answer.

"Don't worry about him. I'll talk to his guardians and make sure they keep him from doing anything stupid." Piaras joined them at the table.

His cheeks were a little flushed from alcohol. And given his power level that meant he drank a lot to get to this state.

"Is that really something you can do? And shouldn't you be setting a better example for us?" Aisling didn't really care that much about what the others did since they weren't in a dangerous situation. But she needed something to let out her frustration from the current situation.

"Kid, we're currently in a safe location. Also, both of you have the chance to reach the upper levels of Anodular, which means you have at least a thousand years of life ahead of you. You're going to meet and work with all sorts of people.

"The people I've been drinking with, I've known since before our district was formed and haven't seen a few for longer. Hell, I have a kid with one of those masters that's older than our district.

"You celebrate when you can and mourn those that aren't as lucky to survive as long as you." Piaras said.

"That kid might be arrogant but his hidden guardians aren't about to let him overstep and insult our trade company." Piaras said.

"Sorry." Aisling mumbled.

"Now for the other reason I came over. I was only able to get two rooms when we checked in and the others took one for themselves. I'm going to give the other room to you guys since it looks like I'm about to reconnect with my kid's mother." Piaras took out the key and tossed it on the table.

He then went and joined an older woman to head up the stairs.

Baldeur looked at the key and expected another explosion of wrath from Aisling. He was surprised when he looked at her and saw that her face was beet red.

"Umm… So I guess we could…" Baldeur began.

"No!" Aisling yelled as she slapped Baldeur, picked up the key, and ran up the stairs to the rooms.

From across the room, Mathys gave Baldeur a smug look.

With nothing else to do, Baldeur tried to get another room only to find that they were all occupied. The only space left was the bunk room. Dozens of people crammed together in one long room.

A few coppers and a little while later, Baldeur found himself on a hard board that had the thinnest layer of hay on it.

As he tuned out the snores of the dozens of other people, Baldeur reflected on what he felt in that disc.

There was a small aura of Infernius' Greed in that disc. It would allow people to track that disc.

Usually the tracking spell would be set up so that even those with Infernius wouldn't be able to sense it but this one had an obvious flaw that allowed people with Infernius to sense it if they touched the disc.

This brought up a number of questions.

If Abel hadn't interrupted Sansone, would Baldeur have received a disc like that?

Was the flaw intentional or were they relying on the fact that Infernius users wouldn't be coming here since it wasn't this world's Source?

Was this connected to that lady from the carriage?

Baldeur felt it was still a little too early for him to get involved in complicated situations. He'd have to reveal a few trump cards if things got difficult and he had wanted to wait a few years before that happened.

'Oh, well.' He thought.

At the end of the day he would go all out if he needed to. He wasn't going to repeat what happened with Ilinka and allow those around him to suffer even a little bit just to hide his secrets.