"Hello sister, seems like you've met with an unfortunate disaster."
She looked in the direction of the voice and saw Eric, the third and last contender for the title. His smile was full of schadenfreude; he was the one with the lowest chance to win the race, yet a single misfortune might make both his siblings lose their right to the duke title.
"Eric, little brother. I've heard you holed up here in fear, I guess it was true."
She bit back, refusing to be mocked by the weakest of the three contenders.
"You should be careful now sister, I heard you just lost 5 of your 8 mages in under a week, which makes you weakest in the contest. Would you like me to tell you a secret?"
Tara hesitated; she was always careful of Eric. Although weak, he loved scheming behind the scenes.
"What's the secret?"
"The man who gave you the report on Gale omitted details on purpose. It's understandable since he is Leo's spy."
He smiled and left Tara to her devices, feeling excited by what was about to come; he had his own spy hiding among Leo's mages.
--------
Gale and Nina had a few peaceful days until the time to depart to the capital arrived. The convoy assembled again outside Antwerp and left the city toward the capital.
Other than a few beasts of the second and first ranks there was nothing exciting, and within a week they arrived at the city gate.
Gale and Nina used this trip for practicing their magic and meditating to understand mana better, and other than that, they just relaxed from all the stress they went through in Antwerp.
At the city gate, there was no need to stay in the convoy anymore; they didn't need the transportation, and the convoy didn't need their protection. They separated from the rest of the convoy, paid the entrance fees, and searched for an inn.
"We should go to the bank and transfer all the money from the cards you've looted to our cards. Do you have yours locked?"
"It's locked, but only for the magician phase. Mages can break it easily."
"Cancel it when we get to the bank, I'm sure you noticed that none of the mages' cards you took were locked. Only magicians do that."
"Why shouldn't I purchase a better lock service to prevent theft?"
"It's frowned upon. For example, we can't transfer money from the magicians' cards and must use them directly. If the bank put its hands on a locked card of dead owners, they just take the money for themselves. Mages leave it unlocked so in some cases if they lose their battle they can get away with their lives in exchange for their money. In other cases, some mages wouldn't even let their enemy's family members go if the card was locked, especially if it's a mage-level lock."
"That's a weird culture I didn't know. Fine, I will leave it unlocked."
They found a fancy hotel and rented two rooms sponsored by Antwerp's dead mages.
"Let's go meet tomorrow with my teacher and Lena. Now that you're stronger than me there's no point in me staying with you and hindering my practice, so I can just practice under my teacher's instructions. I feel I'm about to break into the Mage Phase soon, and her guidance can be of great help to me."
Gale obviously didn't mean to hold Nina back just so she can serve him drinks and act like a maid, which she stopped doing ever since they departed from his hometown anyway. She had her pride and wouldn't act like a maid in public.
"That's great, maybe she can teach me how to use my fire spells better."
They settled their business in the bank and it was time to take care of the lightning stone Gale got from Sol.
"I will introduce you to a sixth rank blacksmith, he can make a good sword of it."
Nina grew in the capital and seemed to know her way around. They rented a carriage and rode to the smithy Nina mentioned. As they entered, Nina walked to the man in the counter.
"Call old Luke here, tell him Nina wants to see him."
She waved her emblem in front of the man, and the man just nodded and went into the workspace behind the counter and called Luke.
"What do you want? Did you lose another bet and came to buy a sword?"
Luke came out and complained as soon as he saw Nina, making Gale look at Nina with pity when he understood who Nina bet with; Lena loved swords and her collection was quite big.
"Ah, no. This time I'm here because my friend got a sixth rank lightning ore, we want you to make it into a sword."
"That's interesting, let me see."
Sixth-rank ores were precious and rare in the Miyena kingdom, he only got the chance to craft them once or twice a year, which was why he rarely crafted anything himself those days.
"I can make a sixth-rank sword from it. I know you're irresponsible and expect everything to be ready for you, so I guess you have no other materials to support it. I will take 50,000 gold for the materials and 10,000 gold for the work."
"That's too much!"
"No it's not, people would pay 100,000 gold just for my service, yet you dare complain?"
"Fine, cheap old man. How long will it take you?"
"2 months."
Luke wasn't offended by Nina's attitude and just answered. Gale felt troubled; everything he looted combined only amounted to 10,000 gold. He had no money for the materials!
"Fine, just send the bill."
Nina, however, solved the problem with a single sentence. Gale was getting curious about her status, it sounded weird that all the Fire Witch's disciples had an unlimited to her bank account.
The next day, Nina led Gale through the city until they reached a large gate, with two expert magicians standing guard.
"Welcome back, Lady Nina. Lady Shana has been worried about you; you should meet her as soon as possible."
"Oh… I will."
She said with a carefree tone and went in with Gale in tow.
"Seems like your teacher really likes you, is she like that with all her students?"
"No, she was probably training Lena cruelly for sending me away to protect you. By the way, I'm her daughter."
