BXBX NOVEL Chapter 458
“I met with the headmaster yesterday. After I told him how he was right about having students visit the library, the headmaster informed me how you saved lady Melissa, and you are a trustable person.”
“Vincent Lionheart. Will you promise not to tell anyone about what I am about to say? Will you accept?” Gusto asked.
“Can I at least tell my wives?” Vincent asked.
“Wives?... ” Gusto remembered how surprised he was to hear how Vincent Lionheart was a bundle of surprises. “Okay, you can do only that.”
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[Promised Quest: The secret with Gusto Moretti must be kept]
[Complete the agreed promise to keep what Gusto Moretti will explain about the paper found in The Red Rock book.]
[Quest conditions to be met.]
.....
*Tell the details to a person not categorized as a wife. (Not Met)
[Rewards]
*Reputation – Gusto Moretti -50
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Vincent and Kazumi were surprised at the appearance of the first negative-only reward quest.
Normally a negative reward would be given upon the failure of an important quest, but this time it was different. This time the quest could be considered a negative quest. One where it is best left uncompleted.
“First of all, I wanted to hide this paper from my wife because she doesn’t know how to hold a secret.”
“I remember one year ago how I was in a hurry and placed the paper in a suitable book at the time. But I got sick the next morning, and after not working for a week, plus my wife cleaning and rearranging the book in her own confusing system for an entire week, I forgot where I placed the paper.”
“If I can’t find the book, then no one can I thought...” Gusto faintly blushed as if he was embarrassed to reveal how the paper was in The Red Rock book.
“This paper was given to me by one of my father’s friends. He worked as a diplomat, and he retired after visiting the lamia territory. My wife and I love to travel, so he must have decided to warn me not to approach the lamia territory by writing a few details of why we should not approach that place.”
Gusto raised the paper and continued with a frown, “But I can still remember my father’s friend’s pale face when he gave me this paper. I later understood why. If it wasn’t fiction, then how could this be allowed? I questioned at the time.”
“My father’s friend told me how this information is a state secret because the lamia kingdom has vastly grown in its military strength by producing a large army from their horrendous exploitation. He vaguely told me how it might be suggesting war is upon the Berlucia Kingdom or us as we are the nearest.”
“So only high officials must know about this information and no one else, correct?” Vincent guessed after years of reading stories with twists.
“Yes. My father’s friend told me how this paper has information only known to high officials of every kingdom.” Gusto confirmed Vincent’s thoughts. Only the high officials knew that the balance of peace wasn’t going to last for a long time.
“This information will cause unrest and panic. I hope something can be done soon since even if a war breaks and the lamias can’t win, the balance keeping the Red Rock peace treaty might collapse.”
Gusto grabbed a bin, threw the paper inside, and lit it on fire. He watched it burn and said to himself in a voice Vincent could hear, “The carnivorous ant’s sudden appearance has already weakened the Lusterfall Kingdom. Something bad might happen if the lamias decide to attack us while we are recuperating.”
[A lot of information arrived at our laps all of a sudden. This is a little bit too much to take in.]
[Firstly, a horrible place that, based on Gusto’s words, is big enough to be considered a kingdom actually exists.]
[Secondly, there might be a war in the kingdom we have started to call our home. Not to mention how many people now live in our home.]
[But why can’t this world let us live in peace? We specifically decided to spend six months training in the academy to become stronger, but our future is still unknown, it appears.]
-We can always run away and take the mansion with us if it gets hairy.-
[Not a bad idea. We can start a small forest village with the mansion as the mayor’s hall, hehe.]
-...-
Vincent shook his head to stop thinking about doing what Kevin did and failed. He looked at Gusto and asked, “Gusto. Why isn’t anyone doing anything to stop the inhumane treatment?”
“I do not know the details, but it might be because of the mysterious force backing the lamia king. Furthermore, I believe something must have happened. No kingdom has taken an action before the lamia kingdom raised its military might up to this point.” Gusto theorized.
Gusto placed a document on the desk with a magical ink pen. He wrote a couple of words and *Tap, tap* “Please sign this magic contract. I need to make sure our promise is upheld. I believe the headmaster’s words, but I want to be safe.” He said.
Vincent agreed and signed the magic contract.
“Thank you for telling me the secret. Now I better know the situation on this continent. My plans to go adventuring with my wives will need to be planned out more carefully.” Vincent said before leaving.
Gusto saw Vincent leave. He frowned and panicked all of a sudden.
“What have I done! I tried to act cool and made the library smell like burnt books. I hope it will go away by tomorrow morning. I need open all the windows quickly!” Gusto said before running to every window and opening it. He hoped his wife would not find out how a librarian broke one of the rules and lit a fire in the library.
Vincent returned to the island. He found his wives one after the other and told them what he had learned in secret.
The frowns on their faces showed Vincent how he needed to become stronger. That was the only way he could protect his family if the secret of him being from another world got discovered.
That evening Vincent trained his hardest to the point of exhaustion since only five more months of training with teachers in the academy remained.
*Day 121 – 7 October – Wednesday*
*Day 122 – 8 October – Thursday*
*Day 123 – 9 October – Friday*
*Day 124 – 10 October – Saturday*
Three days passed and today was Saturday. Vincent skimmed through many books, yet they were all storybooks.
On the other hand, the library was a treasure trove for Lilith. She even spent some time reading the books to the others.
Vincent worried greatly. He hoped there would be no more women with romantic fantasies like Lilith around him.
In the three days that passed, Vincent didn’t improve much in his CQC Art Force Shock, but his control and instinct to feel the gathering mana improved greatly.
Vincent could now inject his mana into his gauntlets with more precision, lowering the risks of experiencing mana fatigue in a fight. He had a hunch that the control could be mastered in a month or two since it used the same principles of the intent sensing used in Soul Dimensional Storage.
Furthermore, based on Vincent’s explanation of what he felt, Kazumi suggested how one charge didn’t always have the same amount of mana to become full.
After placing this guess into practice, they found out how only when the gauntlet began to crack did it reach its current maximum charge.
This happened in a place far away from the mansion. Vincent had asked to suck the mana of his wives at the same time and place all the refined mana into one finger.
Fortunately, Nick, Clair, Vivid, and Pussy weren’t around to see Vincent shoot a short condensed green laser shot at a tree with a wide trunk and disintegrate a hole in it. The move was destructive, yet it took nine minutes of sucking his wives’ mana to shoot.
Vincent now had a goal to reach. He wanted to increase the absorption output and decrease the time taken to use a deadly move.
Friday was the day of the new history class. Vincent went to a class taught by teacher Ming Xiao Fan, the old elf who taught Jun Ye Rim, who helped her learn the purge spell.
All the physical class students joined, while a few of the magic class joined that day.
It left Biro with a deep, angered frown on his face. Out of all the physical students of Class A and Class B, Vincent and Nick were the only students to inform about not attending the next day.
Ming Xiao Fan made an elementary-style lesson where he let the students ask about the Lusterfall Kingdom, and he would try to satisfy them with an answer.
Four hours passed in the blink of an eye, yet not many students managed to ask a question. Ming Xiao Fan was an expert at adding more words than needed and turning one answer into an encyclopedia.
Ming Xiao Fan’s words never sounded boring. Instead, they made everyone interested, even if it was information they knew about. Time flowed swiftly in the lesson, where his voice was heard ninety-nine point nine percent of the time.
Ming Xiao Fan allowed the students to ask one small final question before he left. One student took the opportunity and stood up. He asked if the rumor about a war was true.