Chapter 553 The Future Hotshot
"Sir?" Seeing that the young man in front of him had not responded to anything after he had mentioned his name, the kid stopped what he was about to do for the meantime, deciding to check on the young man out of slight worry and concern.
After all, the young man before him had shown him more grace than any of the other people that had helped him so far.
Unfortunately, with his mind feeling as if it were on the verge of collapse, Valyr's attention was fully focused on the treasure trove of knowledge within his mind. It went without saying that the young man was in the process of rummaging every single memory he had regarding the Grand Marshal of the Zeihardt Sovereignty at that very moment.
To many players during the first version, as well as to a great portion of Veldanyr's human race, the Grand Marshal was basically the human race's greatest mind, as well as its greatest fist.
Being at the peak of Rank 6, he became the leader of almost every skirmish the human race had fought during the War of the Three Sovereignties, only intervening whenever the battle had turned into one that involved Rank 6 beings.
Then again, behind the grandeur of the strongest and smartest being to ever lead the human race during the war, the Grand Marshal had a past that many would find unsavory.
Bringing up everything he knew about the Grand Marshal's past in mind, Valyr decided to find out for himself if the young kid before him was truly the person he knew from his past life.
"Apologies. I was reminded about something." Speaking all of a sudden, the young man apologetically smiled to the kid, who was surprised by his abrupt change in demeanor. "Anyways, you mentioned that you were from the Nicholas clan?"
"Yes... that would be correct..." Inwardly letting out a sigh of relief, the kid returned to his seat as he nodded in response. "However, I'm not truly a part of the Nicholas clan."
"What do you mean by that?" Raising his eyebrow in curiosity while asking the question, Valyr focused on a certain thought he had brought up earlier, wondering if the kid before him would respond with something similar.
"I'm... uh..." Waiting for the kid to answer, the young man watched as the boy squirmed a bit, twiddling his thumbs as he seemed to hesitate. Thankfully, after hesitating for a couple of minutes, the kid finally made up his mind.
"I'm... a slave of the Nicholas clan." With an incredibly glum expression, the kid said these words as he closed his eyes. In his mind, he thought that the opinion of the young man before him would change from these words.
In his mind, he expected the young man to now consider him as the lowest of the low.
Yet, unexpectedly for him, nothing of the sort happened.
"So... does that mean you don't have a surname?" With Valyr being more used to treating everyone he met as an equal, the thought of the kid before him being a slave only briefly flashed in mind. If anything, all he thought about it was the fact that the kid's words lined up with the thought he brought up.
"Eh?" Of course, Valyr's obliviousness towards the kid's status surprised the latter. "You're not angry?"
"Why would I get angry?" Valyr looked at the kid with a slightly raised eyebrow. "You haven't really done anything wrong, though?"
"Eh?" At this point, the kid did not know how to react. "But... I was told..."
"I have no clue as to what your master might have told you." Hearing the kid's words, the young man let out a sigh. "But I really have no reason to get mad at you... unless if you don't finish the food I ordered for you."
"Ah..." Though he was still confused as he was expecting to be brought back to the Nicholas clan one way or another, the kid still followed the young man's order, albeit reluctantly.
"Did your master tell you that any person you might across would bring you back to the clan no matter what or something?" Finding the kid's reaction somewhat odd, Valyr decided to inquire about it after some time.
"Yes..." Taking a few small bites of the food, the kid slightly shuddered at the question before eventually nodding. "Master said that as long as anyone found out I was a slave, I'd be returned to the Nicholas clan..."
"Are you going to bring me back, sir?" As the kid asked this question, tears began to well up around his eyes. From the looks of it, he was already thinking about the worst-case scenario.
"Why would I?" However, Valyr had no plans of doing such thing, especially now that he had become somewhat certain that he was talking to a future hotshot. "I do not owe the Nicholas clan a favor, nor do I know anyone from the Nicholas clan at all."
"Moving the topic aside for now, let's return to the question I asked you earlier," continued the young man. "Do you have a surname?"
"Master said that as long as I was under the Nicholas clan, I wasn't allowed to use my surname..." muttered the kid, giving Valyr the answer he wanted in a roundabout way.
"In other words, you do have a surname." Feeling like the kid in front of him would mention his master at every answer, Valyr decided to move onto the next question. "Between Edward and Jerome, what would you like me to call you?"
"Master usually calls me Jerome..." Looking down at the floor, the kid twiddled his thumbs. "But... it would be... it would be nice if I was called Edward..."
"Edward, huh." At those words, Valyr gave the kid a faint grin. "Alright, I'll call you Edward, then."
"How... how about you, sir?" Taking delight at being called by his first name, Edward gained the courage to ask back. "What should I call you...?"
"You can call me Valyr," the young man replied, thinking that it would be better for him to use his true identity.
"Valyr..." muttered Edward to himself a couple of times, as if committing the name to memory. Though, after a while, a thought popped up in the kid's mind.
"Valyr... are you perhaps the one Master usually mentioned?" asked Edward not long after. "Valyr... Valyr Zeihardt... was it?"
"Perhaps." Not wanting to give the kid a definite answer, Valyr let out a chuckle, infusing more mana into the barrier around them for safe measure. "Anyways, Edward. If you don't mind me asking, could you perhaps tell me how you ended up at the streets of Algerie?"
"Well..." Though he was still wary earlier, Edward's anxiousness in being brought back to the Nicholas clan slightly disappeared when he found out that the young man who aided him was possibly a member of the Zeihardt clan.
After all, as far as he knew, the Zeihardt clan was a stronger clan that the Nicholas clan.
With that in mind, he began to narrate to Valyr his life within the Nicholas clan, making sure not to miss even a single detail. While the way the kid explained it was somewhat slow, the young man allowed the kid to take his time, even going so far as to order a few more dishes while he was in the middle of his narration.
In fact, by the time Edward was done with his narration, there was only an hour or so before sunset. Whether it was because the young man felt like they had already stayed at the restaurant for too long, or the fact that he and Edward had already more than eaten their fill, the two of them left the restaurant after Valyr paid their bill.
"Well, that was a nice meal, don't you think?" Walking through the streets of Algerie beside Edward for a while to digest what they had eaten, Valyr eventually asked this question to the kid.
"It was..." Though he nodded in agreement to the question, a glum expression appeared on Edward's face in response. "Are we... are we parting ways here?"
"Normally, that would be the case." Hearing these words from Valyr, Edward instantly thought that he would have to return to begging on the streets to live, prompting him to wonder whether what had happened earlier was a dream.
However...
"But considering your current situation, I can't really just leave you alone now, could I?" As Valyr said these words with a chuckle, tears started to well up around Edward's eyes once more. Then, before the young man could comment on the kid's tears, the latter gave the former a tight hug.
"...haah." Slightly surprised by the kid's actions, Valyr eventually had an idea of what was going on, smiling as he faintly caressed the kid's head. Allowing the kid to hug him for as long as he wanted, Edward eventually let go after a few minutes, dried up tears staining his face.
"Let's head back, shall we?" Asking this question to the young kid, Valyr could only smile wider as Edward tightly gripped onto his hand in response. With that, the two of them eventually made their way back to the inn, just as the sun was about to set.
