Chapter 340
“So, you’re sure you have been raised as a miner?”
“Yeah.” Jacob nods to the Count, who has been asking the same question over and over and over. And Jacob doesn’t really understand why. He doesn’t understand why Count Myshkin is so hung up on it.
He’s said that there are ways to be formally introduced to the royal family without having to actually marry into it per se, but they do require him, Count Myshkin said, to at the very least present a request to the princess. And through the princess’s sponsorship, Jacob would be able to get access to the Book of Blade.
And since then, about a week has passed in which they have continued their mining activities, and Count Myshkin, in the breaks from work, made sure to ask several times whether Jacob was actually brought up as a proper miner. Jacob said yes just as many times — tired from the constant work in the mine, though.
Apparently, their work has been recognized by the royal family, and they have had to ramp it up. And even with Jacob’s ease using the Wrath of Blade, he’s been burning insane amounts of Mana and making essentially no progress on the Mana nodes — to the point where the other miners, apart from Count Myshkin, have asked him, despite their gratitude, to not touch any Mana node until he figures something out. To be honest, they have not been rude in the way they asked, and Jacob can understand: he blew up so many nodes after joining the team that he really has no business being offended by the request.
And today is the fated day where, Count Myshkin said, Jacob is gonna present himself to the royal family officially. Myshkin has said that he’s gonna vouch for his appearance, but that he needs to convince the princess.
- - -
Jacob enters the keep and finds a familiar face waiting for him.
“Cornelius!”
Jacob waves as if the guard were an old friend. The man looks at him, deadpan.
“Oh, you know this guard?” Count Myshkin says with a raised eyebrow.
“Uh, he was the one who got me on the first day,” Jacob says, pointing at the guard. “I didn’t really know anything and, you know, he brought me here. He was also nice. He killed this guy that, uh, was sort of hosting an Evil God — not a Primordial God, mind you, an incarnation — but still a very nasty, nasty person.”
Hearing Jacob mention giving chase to an incarnation — even just a non-Primordial-God one — makes Count Myshkin pause. If it came from anybody else, those words would have sounded like madness. But coming from Jacob, Count Myshkin has no problem believing him.
And so it is Cornelius escorting them through the keep. He says nothing to Jacob despite the friendliness displayed toward him by the young man. Jacob, seeing that Cornelius is not really willing to concede anything, doesn’t say anything else.
“Wait in the great hall,” Cornelius says. “The princess will receive you there.”
“Okay. Thank you,” Jacob says with a nod.
Count Myshkin watches Cornelius go to wait in front of the door. He is not a direct member of the royal family — more like part of a branch — and cannot simply enter the place without asking for an audience.
Still, Jacob’s reaction to the kind of treatment that a simple guard is giving him is more moderate than what Count Myshkin would have thought him capable of. He’s been very friendly toward the other miners, too. Of course, every single one of those miners has more authority than Ivan could ever hope for. But that doesn’t mean someone who has just displayed Jacob’s kind of power with the Wrath of Blade would be expected to act this way. In fact, Count Myshkin has thought several times that if he had Jacob’s capabilities with Primordial Magic, he would have stormed the keep and asked to be made part of the main branch of the royal family.
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What Jacob is doing is nothing short of incredible. And yet, the young man acts like it is nothing. I mean, thankfully, the young man was also clearly properly trained in royal etiquette — which would have taken Count Myshkin months to walk him through. But he had asked Jacob many, many times to make sure that he knew what this would entail, because he really didn’t wanna offend the royal family and be marked for execution in case Jacob didn’t.
And so now they wait for the doors to open.
It doesn’t take long until a stern man in dark robes appears.
Jacob had been looking at the painting of a man with a pickaxe raised in one hand and a sword in the other, thinking it kinda looked like him while using the Wrath of Blade. And he had been about to ask Count Myshkin about it when the man in dark robes says, “It is time for the audience.”
“All right,” Jacob replies, weirded out.
“Jacob,” Count Myshkin says.
The man in dark robes just stands there, looking at them.
Jacob points at the guy and says, “Is he good? Why is he not saying anything else? Do we just go through the doors?”
In that moment, Count Myshkin thinks, No. This cannot be.
The man in dark robes takes out a sword and points it at Jacob.
“Pronounce the words.”
“Can I see the princess?” Jacob says.
Count Myshkin looks at Jacob in abject horror and then says, “Uh, I’m sorry, executioner. Actually, we have to go back home. I’m not really feeling well. You know how the weather is lately — probably because of the Primordial Magic from Apocalypse or whatever. See ya.”
He grabs Jacob and starts to backpedal very, very fast — so much that Jacob asks, “What’s going on? What’s the problem?”
“Didn’t you say you’ve been trained as a miner your whole life?”
“Yeah, of course. What does this have to do with that guy?”
Before Myshkin can reply, the executioner appears in front of the two.
“He has failed the audience. He shall be thrown into the Dungeon.”
“No, no, no, no, listen. This is all a big misunderstanding,” Count Myshkin says with a big smile. “And he is the most valuable thing this kingdom has at the moment. We need him in the mines, man. Come on, executioner. We just made a little mistake. We will be back. Uh, the audience is not… we didn’t really want an audience anyway. It was just, you know, a chat, a little tea and biscuits. It’s fine. Bye.”
Count Myshkin is about to cross the door they had come from when it slams shut and is covered in pitch-black Mana.
Jacob looks at the spell and finds out that the executioner in front of them is at Mithril Rank.
Holy crap.
Above Adamantite Rank, which is above Imperium Rank. That man outranks Jacob by two whole Ranks. He could probably pulverize Jacob with a flick of a finger.
“Um, sorry, what’s the Dungeon?” Jacob asks, trying to put on his oblivious expression, hoping it might help.
“Since you failed the audience,” the executioner says, “you shall suffer the Dungeon of the Worthy. You wanted to claim closeness to royalty, but by Rafnov’s rule, you were not worthy of the lineage of Blade.”
Is it Rafnov’s rules or Blade’s rules?
“An audience? Like, you mean I had to say some formulas and stuff like that?” Jacob turns toward Count Myshkin, who’s facepalming, looking terrified, and at the same time nodding. “That doesn’t sound like Rafnov,” Jacob says with a frown. “Man, I wish my senior brother were here. This sounds like a load of bull—”
His words are cut off.
“How dare you infer what Master Rafnov would have wanted?” the executioner says, pointing at Jacob. “You shall go through the Dungeon and—”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll go through the Dungeon,” Jacob says with a sigh. “But this — having to go through this etiquette of formulas and behaviors and stuff — what does this have anything to do with being a miner? What the hell are we talking about?”
“Do not be insolent. Or you shall pay the consequences for it.”
Jacob raises his hands and says, “Okay, I will just come to this Dungeon. So, what’s this?”
“This is one of Rafnov’s Trials — the alternative to decree who is worthy of meeting the standards of the royal family. And only those of royal blood are said to be able to pass such a trial. Get ready.”
“I was born re—”
Jacob is cut off once again as a hole appears under his feet, and he starts falling into the void.