Although the two younglings were flustered, their attention was quickly overtaken by the thought of receiving their presents.
"Do you both have registered Identification objects already?" Erin suddenly asked them with a curious tone.
Usually the children of well-off families got one registered when they were born. When their parents thought they were old enough, it would be given to them.
Erin wasn't aware of this because he grew up in an ordinary family.
He only received his identification crest when he entered secondary education. Because they were expensive, he could only get an unbound one that was older and second-hand. Pity that it broke too soon.
Part of the reason why he attempted the Imperial Academy exams was because they would give him an orb as long as he passed the preliminaries. Even if he failed the entrance exams, he could still keep the orb.
Olivia and Edward quickly took out crests from the pockets of their overalls. Although they were wearing similar overalls from earlier, both overalls looked very clean this time.
Erin smiled and took out his own orb. With a couple mental commands, the orb suddenly flashed two rays of light that landed on Olivia's and Edward's crests respectively.
An identical holographic notification popped up above each of their crests.
[New Balance Received!]
[150,000 Lafite]
"Oh?! Yay!"
Olivia and Edward were both very happy!
This was no small sum.
In comparison, although a hundred million Lafite could only buy a fully developed life planet, the key here was 'fully-developed'.
In an intergalactic age, a fully developed life planet could defend against dimensional beast invasions! It could also defend against hundreds of invading military-grade starships and even counter-attack! That's just how incredibly powerful and valuable it is! Especially in an age where many technological advancements were lost due to intergalactic wars.
Although Erin actually wanted to give them a little more for their help, he was afraid doing so would cause more harm than good. In his mind, it was like giving a couple good younglings a small piece of gold.
"Erin.." Edward stared at him with admiring eyes.
'I don't like this look!' Erin stepped back a little.
"From now on, I'll treat you like family!"
Edward sounded like Erin gave him a new lease on life.
Usually, other than their parents, the only people that gave the two younglings any presents were their extended family. That in mind, Edward looked like he reached a decision.
"Uncle Erin!" Edward's tone sounded like he wasn't going to take no for an answer.
"Ooh! Uncle Erin!" Olivia agreed unhesitantly.
'..Uncle?!' Erin's face twitched.
"I'm only 18 years old! At least call me brother." Erin muttered without thinking.
"Ooh! Okay! Brother Erin!" The younglings didn't realize Erin was younger than he appeared.
It was probably because Erin's hadn't taken a shower or changed from his dirt-covered clothes. He looked like somebody who's been traveling for months by himself and it gave him a far older vibe.
As this fiasco came to an end, Ron finally returned through the dining hall doors.
"Hmm? You all seem awfully happy?" Ron instantly noticed the gleeful expressions on the two youngling's faces.
"Haha, Ron!! Look what Brother Erin gave us!" Edward and Olivia displayed their Cyber Currency Balances. The both of them didn't even hesitate. Even though he was their family's butler, Darwin told them many stories about how he used to fight with Ron.
Darwin even emphasized that when he retired from the Intergalactic Armada, Ron went out of his way to retire from a very high position just to follow Darwin.
So the two younglings had a lot of trust in Ron!
"Oh?" Ron raised his eyebrows in surprise.
"That's quite generous of you, Sir Erin." Ron suddenly started treating Erin a lot more respectfully. It seems that the overly friendly tone of the two younglings influenced Ron's impression of Erin a lot."
"Hmm.." Edward and Olivia suddenly looked like they were pondering something seriously.
"Is something the matter?" Erin asked. The solemn mood caught him off-guard. Just seconds ago the two of them were so delighted that Erin thought it would take days to calm them down.
"We need to exchange it!" The both of them said in unison.
Neither of them were stupid enough to directly buy something with Lafite.
If they walked up to any merchant and said, "Can I pay in Ancient Cyber Credits?", they would probably be killed for their belongings in a heartbeat.
'..Exchange? Oh, that's a really good idea!' Erin realized that he also needed regular money to get by. He needed to acquire some third-generation cyber currencies to use instead.
"Should we go to the Redstone clan's homeplanet and exchange it there through Grandpa?" Olivia glanced at Edward and pondered.
"Oh right! Grandpa is stronger than dad! Maybe he can exchange it safely." Edward thought this idea sounded feasible.
"Okay, let's go!" Both Edward and Olivia decided on the spot.
However, before they could even walk to the dining hall doors, Ron poured rain over their parade.
"Young Master and Miss, I'm afraid the Redstone clan isn't powerful enough to safely exchange all that Lafite." Ron said respectfully.
"Furthermore, if they knew, aside from your Father and Grandfather, the other elders in the clan will probably disagree with two children having that much wealth. Going there and seeking assistance from your grandfather might even spark some infighting in the clan."
"Oh.." The two younglings looked very disappointed. They didn't want to create problems for their grandfather!
'They can't even go to their clan's homeworld and safely exchange it?' Erin knew it would be difficult to exchange Lafite, but he didn't realize that even with connections it would still be this hard!
"Oh! Brother Erin's family must be pretty powerful! Can we exchange it through them?" Edward and Olivia re-directed their gaze at Erin.
Ron also stared at Erin with a curious gleam in his eyes.
'...'
"Sorry, my family isn't anywhere near this part of the universe." Erin answered with a sigh. He didn't even know what planet he was on! "Even with one of the fastest starships, it would take a very long time."
"..Is your family's territory only accessible by starship?" Edward misunderstood Erin's last sentence. "Shouldn't they have some dimensional gates?"
Edward assumed that such a powerful family would be in control of several dimensional gates.
'Dimensional gates?' Even though this term was new to Erin, he quickly made an excuse.
"..Heh. You would think so too, right?" Erin's somber face looked like he was going through his memories.
"Unfortunately the old foggies in my family absolutely refused to have any dimensional gates near our planets!" Erin stomped the floor lightly in frustration. "They consider the gates flawed and were concerned that they might get hijacked one day to invade the family's territory."
Erin didn't know if such a thing was actually possible. Fortunately it didn't matter since he threw all the blame on his non-existent family clan elders.
"I had to go through so much danger just to get out of my family's territory!" Erin had tiny tears on the edge of his eyes. "I'd rather not go back unless I have too."
"Furthermore, the reason I am here is because the starship I was on had been destroyed by pirates!" Erin wasn't actually lying this time.
He also ended his outburst with this sentence on purpose. He needed to mix in the truth with some half-truths in order to give off the appearance of being honest.
"Wow." Edward and Olivia had no idea that Erin's starship was destroyed! This news made them think back to the moments where their father said no to their requests to travel through space. He repeatedly warned them that space pirates were running more rampant recently.
"Hey. If your starship was destroyed, how did you get here?" Edward repeatedly poked Erin's arm to make sure he had his attention.
"Haha. That's a secret." Erin really got used to his facade. He didn't hesitate to make up something to brush the question aside.
Somehow, this answer made the younglings further strengthen their convictions to acknowledge Erin as their brother!
The two younglings thought that Erin probably used some really awesome methods that he couldn't admit to.
'Perhaps a dimensional beast? Or maybe a rare artifact!' Their imaginations were too vivid.
Ron was half-believing Erin's statements. Although he could tell that Erin wasn't telling the whole truth, he knew that Ancient families had their own secrets. So Ron decided not to pry into the details so deeply out of politeness.
"This seems to be quite the dilemma." Ron muttered as he got back to the topic at hand. He squinted his eyes and started thinking about potential solutions.
After a short period of silence, Ron glanced at Olivia and Edward and noticed that their eyes started looking a lot more pessimistic.
'Hmm, this won't do.' Ron thought to himself.
"Alright, I think I have a solution to this problem." Ron made a serious decision. His words surprised Erin and the two younglings. "Come, follow me."
Without questioning his words, Erin and the two younglings followed Ron. They were really curious about what kind of solution he had.
As the group left the dining hall, Ron glanced back at Snow and Bobo and said, "You both can go to the Master's room and watch over him. I will be more than enough to assure their safety."
The two beasts didn't even question Ron. They nodded before turning around and sprinting in a different direction.
'Safety?' Erin thought to himself and wondered where exactly they were going.
After a few minutes, the four of them reached the doors of a very large elevator and entered.
When the group entered the elevator and Ron pressed a button marked 'B50', Edward and Olivia got very excited.
Unlike their excited mood, Erin was looking at the elevator buttons and thought back to the moment where Ron first brought him into the mansion.
'If there's an elevator, then why did we walk up five flights of stairs earlier?'
Erin grumbled a little bit in his mind.
These minor complaints were wiped out when the elevator stopped and opened again.
He saw an enormously grand yet dimly lit hall. There was the vague silhouette of giant doors on the other side of the hall.
What caught his attention the most was the slightly elevated platform at the center of the hall. There was a huge rectangular gate on top of this platform! Countless small runes were engraved all around the body of this metal gate.
As the group walked out of the elevator and towards the platform, Ron looked at Erin with a smirk. "You probably did not expect that our small city actually had a dimensional gate."
"Heh. The reason why the mansion is located on top of a mountain in the city isn't because of the Ocean view.. It's because the mountain is fake."
These words made Erin realize two things! One was that this was the fabled dimensional gate that he heard about earlier and, two, that this mansion was actually built on top of it!
'But as to why?' Erin truly had no idea. 'Are dimensional gates valuable? Did they need to keep it a secret by hiding it underground?' Were thoughts that bounced off of Erin's brain.
Before Erin got a chance to ask anything, Ron pointed down at the ground. This perplexed Erin until he heard Ron speak out.
"By the way, this is my familiar." Ron spoke as his shadow suddenly conformed into the shape of a werewolf.
"..A Shadow Monster!" Erin was stunned.
Suddenly, a red notification appeared in Erin's mind.
[Warning. Extremely Dangerous. Identification is currently not possible. Please raise your level.]
'Extremely Dangerous?!' Erin was even more stunned by this notification. Even though Snow and Bobo were of higher levels, this notification never appeared for them. Erin looked at the shadow monster, twitched his mouth with a fake smile, and instinctively bowed his head.
The shadow creature seemed to have noticed Erin's panic.
Ron watched this interaction with great amusement. On the side, Olivia and Edward didn't look concerned at all!