Chapter 115: The Tin Knight and The Land of Sea Breeze (4)
Even though they dealt with it quickly, it was impossible to keep the subjugation of the Sea Serpent completely secret.
Just one hour. The lord, who came to find the party surprisingly quickly for someone of high status, showed a behavior that could be described as dignified at best, or meddlesome at worst.
“Are you the travelers who subjugated the Sea Serpent? You’ve done a very dangerous thing. It’s been a long time since I issued an edict not to provoke the Sea Serpent carelessly. It’s fortunate that you somehow succeeded in subjugating it, but if you had failed, wouldn’t the excited creature have brought greater danger to this city?”
Up to this point, the party nodded obediently.
It was true that they had ignored various procedures due to their urgent schedule, and the danger the lord mentioned wasn’t entirely unreasonable.
However, they couldn’t help but make strange expressions at what followed.
“The guard naturally said they should arrest you for disobeying orders, but I thought we couldn’t simply punish those who subjugated an evil magic beast, even if their method was wrong, so I came out here personally. We’ll offset the punishment for disobeying orders with a reward, and the city will recover the Sea Serpent’s body to use in repairing the damage it caused.”
While the justification sounded plausible, the conclusion was that he would simply gobble up the Sea Serpent’s body for himself.
After all, how to repair the damage caused by the Sea Serpent was entirely at the lord’s discretion.
Meanwhile, his skill in speaking as if he had bestowed something upon the party by waiving the punishment that should have been given originally, at his own discretion, was also impressive.
At this point, it didn’t matter much that the party’s combat power was stronger than what the lord could mobilize.
This was because what the lord was asserting was social authority.