Eri groaned as he stared up at swords and spears raised against him.

  “Enough of this! He needs medical care!” Dulcina ordered. She was held at bay by a wall of soldiers. “All of you, stand down!”

  “Belay that order!” Seneschal Armael panted, having run after the Heiress with an entourage of armed men in tow. “Squires, arrest that boy! He is responsible for the death of your Captains and seniors!”

  “Look, it’s fine. If you just let me explain—” Eri did not get to finish before an armed squire slammed a pommel against his burnt face.

  The boy crumpled instantly. It already took everything he had just to reach the castle’s gates. He was barely in condition to stay awake, let alone fight back.

  “Eri!” Dulcina shouted. “None of you touch him! I swear to the Goddess, if the lot of you do not listen to me right now—!”

  “Ignore her! The Lady has been seduced by his heretical powers,” Seneschal Armael yelled. “He is a wolf in sheep's clothing, having wormed his way into our hold through his ‘rescue’ of Lady Dulcina!”

  “I assure you, there was no seducing on my part. If anything, it was the other way around— Gah!” Eri was struck in the face again.

  “He sought to pilfer wealth from your Lord’s generosity. Now, he aims his vile talons at our knights. He has slain your Captain!” The Seneschal continued, pointing dramatically at him. “How else is he here, alive and well, while all the men sent to rescue him are dead!”

  “Well, if you just give me a second, I can show you— OW! Can you stop hitting me in the face?!” Eri yelled at the attacking squire. “At least don’t aim for the burnt part! Go for the nose or the back of my head if you’re trying to knock me out! What’s wrong with you?!”

  “Honestly, I thought you would have fainted by now,” the young page sheepishly admitted. “I’m still new to this.”

  Eri rolled his eyes. “Alright, fine. Let me demonstrate.”

  In one swift motion, Eri grabbed the squire’s wrist, dragged him down, and violently headbutted the young man’s nose while the youth was off-balance.

  The backlash made Eri’s head spin, but the sound of cartilage cracking, followed by the squire slumping unconscious, made up for it.

  Never thought I could be the petty sort… Eri shook his head groggily as he pulled a knife from the squire’s boot and placed it against the youth’s neck.

  That finally got the rest of the men to back off. Seneschal Armael started spewing more nonsense about how he had finally shown his true colours. Dulcina was still struggling to reach him while her men held her back for her ‘safety’.

  Eri just stared at them all, waiting patiently as he sensed Lord Draevan’s presence approaching.

  “Enough of this,” the Lord ordered. His voice was neither loud nor demanding. It carried a heavy fatigue.

  Nonetheless, it commanded their attention.

  “Eri,” the Lord said wearily. “Why do you have a knife to my squire’s neck?”

  “With all due respect, Sir, you need better men,” Eri snapped back, annoyed. “These ones are incompetent.”

  “Unfortunately, all the competent ones have either turned traitor or died — most of their demise tangentially related to you, funnily enough,” the Lord mused. “After all, you were the one who killed the turncoats who tried to kidnap Dulcina. And the men my daughter sent to rescue you — who she ordered behind my back, even — are now all gone.”

  Wait, Lord Draevan was not the one who sent the rescue party? Eri glanced at Dulcina, who looked away guiltily.

  I had wondered why Captain Lauren had shown up. Out of the entirety of Lord Draevan’s retinue, he was the one too valuable to risk.

  “Now, I find you here, alive and alone, with all my men seemingly dead and an entire port on fire,” Lord Draevan continued. “You must admit, it is a difficult position for me to be in.”

  Eri sighed. “Okay, I’ve had enough…”

  The boy reached for his pouch.

  “He is pulling out a weapon! Guards, arrest him!” Seneschal Armael ordered.

  “All of you, stay where you are! That’s a direct order!” Dulcina yelled.

  The guards fidgeted hesitantly, unsure of who to follow. They looked to Lord Draevan instead.

  A heartbeat passed. The man exhaled and raised his hand.

  “Men of House Elathion, I order you to—”

  “There, finally,” Eri muttered as he finally opened his Inventory pouch.

  Before Lord Draevan could finish, the Inventory pouch floated into the air, expanded its opening two metres wide…

  … before turning upside down and spitting out an alive and intact Captain Lauren rudely onto the floor.

  “Gah!” the man said as he hit the ground. “What? How the?! Where in the world— my Lord?!”

  Lord Draevan stared, his expression comically flabbergasted. It was entirely unlike any other expression Eri had seen on the nobleman before.

  The rest of the group was no better.

  “T-this is!” Armael choked, face turning red. “A spatial pocket?! How does a child like you possess magic from the Age of the Gods?! And you placed a person in there?!”

  The men watched in shock and terror as the giant floating pouch went about the grounds and spat out one knight after another. Joarris’s party of five soon followed, shouting and cursing as they fell out of the black hole.

  Only Matron Elen landed on her feet, shield and stance ready. When she saw the castle gates, as well as the armed guards outside, she scoffed.

  “Lord Draevan, this better not be an attempt to harm my ward, or we are going to have a very serious conversation about broken promises,” she warned.

  The Lord opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again. Not a single word came out.

  “I think you broke him,” Eri commented.

  “You broke him, brat,” Elen snorted, though she kept her guard up. “His brain is probably stuck trying to consider the implications behind this. I should know. I was the same the first time around.”

  “What the hell? We are already here?” Bori was the one who said that. “But that barely felt like a second! I didn’t even have time to blink!”

  “A stable and infinite spatial storage capable of preserving sentient minds,” Raharim gasped in amazement. He stood up quickly, ignoring his wounds. “This is a miracle! We must preserve him at all costs! The Church needs to know! And, and… Oh, hey, look. The port is on fire.”

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  “HOLY SHIT!” Julie yelled as she stared at the massive flames engulfing the entire lake. “Look at all that! Did we miss the fireworks? That sucks! I wanted to watch!”

  The returned group of knights groaned and mumbled. Soon, the stunned squires rushed to aid their seniors, either helping them stand or running back to the castle to collect stretchers and medical supplies.

  Though most were wounded, not a single knight had died in the rescue attempt. All were returned to Castle Elathion alive.

  Captain Lauren studied the scene carefully. Though severely injured, the man’s eyes carefully met Draevan’s. “My Lord, this is…”

  “A miracle,” Lady Dulcina exhaled shakily. “I knew it. I knew I wasn’t wrong.”

  “T-this changes nothing!” Seneschal Armael yelled. “You still blew up the Violet Maw’s oil reservoirs — the future of House Elathion itself! Hundreds, even thousands of gold, gone! Because of you! How do you intend to repay—”

  Eri pulled out a Ruby Core.

  The impossibly lustrous glimmer the gem gave off immediately attracted everyone’s attention and shut them all up. Yet once more, all eyes fell on Eri, robbed of speech and left dumbstruck.

  “Sorry about the port,” the boy murmured. “There was no other way. It was my recklessness that caused this mess. Everyone got hurt because of me. I managed to seal up the Hellgate and retrieve the Core. I hope this will compensate for the burdens I’ve caused you.”

  “You… You sealed up the Hellgate?” Lord Draevan weakly asked. “You killed the Archon?”

  Eri grimaced. He held up the Ruby Core once more. The proof of his claims lay clearly in his hands, yet everyone seemed to flinch away from it. “This is the Hellgate’s Core.”

  In other words, the source of House Elathion’s woe, the disaster that had burdened the noble family relentlessly for the last hundred years, threatening the House’s inevitable destruction…

  It had just been thoroughly gutted. The evidence was unmistakable — a Ruby Hellgate Core in Eri’s hand.

  \-\

  Ruby-Grade Hellgate Core

  Base Value: 3500 Gold

  A harvested Hellgate Mana Core, gained from clearing a Ruby-Grade Hellgate. This one came from the Hellgate deep within the corrupted waters of the Violet Maw. The detestable gate has long been regarded as conventionally inassailable. Its inaccessible entrance at the bottom of the lake, combined with its Jewelled-Rank hazard rating, meant nothing less than a minor Crusade backed by a Saint could conquer it.

  … Either that, or you could send a plucky twelve-year-old pyromaniac to blow the whole thing up.

  \-\

  “It’s yours now. I don’t want it,” Eri said, pressing it into Lord Draevan’s shaking hands. “Hopefully, this will be enough to restore your House.”

  Unlike the Emerald-Grade Hellgate Core, a Ruby was just on the cusp of being too valuable to sell. Assuming Lord Draevan played his cards right, he could find a proper buyer for the Core while avoiding a legion of assassins from eradicating his House.

  And unlike the profits from the Caustic Oil, Lord Draevan need not go through the hassle of repair, remanning, and restarting the port’s oil harvesting and distribution operations, which in itself would take years and even more gold. All the Lord had to do now was sell the Ruby Core, and he would have enough money to restore his House to glory.

  “How… How did you even acquire this?” Draevan asked. “The Hellgate would be at the bottom of the boiling lake. You would need to enter it, travel to its end, pull out the Core, and escape the collapsing domain…”

  Eri grimaced. He said nothing.

  Eventually, Lord Draevan simply took the Core. “Then, can you at least tell me why you are giving this to me? It is too heavy a gift to accept without words.”

  “Well, I mean… I did blow up your port, along with thousands of gold worth of private property and resources,” Eri sheepishly pointed out.

  “And in doing so, you sealed the lake’s Hellgate and quite possibly secured House Elathion’s future,” Lord Draevan seriously said. “In truth, the oil was lost to us regardless. Never in my life did I even think it was possible to fully destroy that blight on my home, only contain it. You have done me a service I cannot repay, but rather than asking for wealth, you are giving me more? Why?”

  It was true that Eri could have probably kept the Ruby Core for himself with zero repercussions. With his spatial inventory, no one could ever claim he took it, even if they suspect. And even then, who would challenge his right to its ownership? He was the one who took down the Hellgate, cleared the port of demons, and arguably saved House Draevan from a slow and inevitable demise.

  But…

  “You need it much more than I do,” Eri explained. “I won’t be much of a hero if I hoarded pointless wealth while others went without.”

  The sheer absurdity of his statement left the retinue of House Elathion slack-jawed and exchanging bewildered glances.

  Only Dulcina smiled, her pale eyes flashing with near-zealous excitement.

  “... I give up,” Lord Draevan chuckled tiredly. “I don’t understand you at all.”

  Me too, Eri thought privately. This heroism business doesn’t make any sense. But…

  Helping others without gain is what Saint Ariane would have done, I think.

  [Side Quest Complete: ‘We Need Money!’]

  [+15000 XP]

  [+2500 Heroism Points]

  [+10000 Reputation with Nobility]

  [Nobility Reputation Ascended! You are now ‘Well-Known’ among the Highborn!]

  [Bonus Objective Completed: ‘Saving Rookie Heroes, Round 2!’]

  [All members of Joarris’s party have made it out of the Port alive!]

  [Reward: +3 points to all attributes per Hero saved, with an additional +5 points to all attributes if all heroes make it out alive]

  [All Attributes permanently raised by 20 points each]

  ~~~

  A few days later…

  “Why are we here? You need rest, brat.”

  “So do you,” Eri grunted to Elen, forcing his crutches through the snow. “I already told you I don’t need you to accompany me.”

  “You woke me up in the middle of the night, told me you are sneaking out into the southern snowfields outside Kaldreach, and you expected me NOT to follow you?”

  “Well, if I didn’t tell you, and you found me missing in bed again, you’ll get mad at me when I come back in the morning.”

  “Damn right I will. So, why are we out here?”

  Eri sighed. He looked around — nothing but empty snow for miles around. His [Observation] Skill sensed no one besides the two of them as well.

  “Okay, first. Before we begin… I need you to promise me you won’t get mad.”

  “Ha! Absolutely not,” Elen shot back immediately. “If you’re starting with that, then I already know this is going to make my blood boil. Do you know I have grey hairs now, thanks to you?”

  Eri looked at her dubiously. “No, you don’t. Also, if you’re going to be like this, I’ll just sneak out here without you next time.”

  “I’ll keep an eye on you at all times. I’ll even strap you to my bed if I have to,” Elen threatened.

  Eri shrugged. “I’m good at sneaking out. You won’t be able to catch me.”

  The matron fumed. She didn’t refute his statement. Eventually, the woman sighed. “Fine. I promise. Now, what the hell’s so important you have to come out here all alone for?”

  Eri fidgetted. “It’s easier if I show you. Just… remember your promise, alright?”

  “It better not be another bomb.”

  Nope. It’s far worse. Eri mentally prepared himself for the outrage coming.

  He took out his Inventory pouch with some trepidation.

  Under his silent command, the innocent-looking pouch floated high into the air, moving forth until it reached a large patch of open snow. Then it expanded…

  And expanded…

  And kept expanding, until the opening was almost a hundred metres across.

  The enormous, gaping void seemed to shudder for a second before it disgorged Eri’s desired ‘object’.

  Elen’s mind nearly blanked when five hundred tons of slithering demon muscles crashed into the snow.

  The mountain of scale and oil moved, reptilian wings and arms stretching as it uncoiled itself.

  “Hmm… It truly was instantaneous,” the Demon Noble, Marchosias, growled. “A peculiar magic you possess, my Lord. Most useful, indeed. This shall make the matter of our partnership much easier.”

  Eri said nothing, though he did inch slightly away from Elen’s trembling form.

  “Hmm? Oh ho! You must be the Matron my Lord spoke of!” The Dragon-Levitathan spoke jovially, its enormous serpent tail wagging. “Glory to you, esteemed Mistress! From this day forth, I shall greet you as ‘Grand Matriarch’, in honour of the motherly care you have given my Lord. As is customary of domesticated beasts within human families, I shall demand treats and walks, and in doing so, we shall build an unbreakable bond that transcends the hate between our species.”

  Eri continued inching further from Elen until the Matron landed a heavy hand on his shoulder.

  Turning timidly, he said, “Okay, first of all, you promised—”

  He didn’t get to finish.

  “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!!!!!”

  Elen’s roars against his ears were almost worse than the explosion he suffered at the port days ago.