He ignored the weird voices he was hearing and walked to the couch, also ignoring the bundle of yellow he saw there and sat down before continuing.
"First of all, Laurene and I had a good harvest, I got to level 36 and she got to 29."
Hearing the levels they achieved, the ducal and imperial couple were surprised. They had only expected a level increase of 6 or at most, 7.
However, Evan had a level increase of 15 and Laurene had an increase of 17. This had exceeded their expectations by a large margin.
"Just what the hell did you fight?"
The emperor finally broke the silence and asked, the others were also curious.
"A level 55 Leopard at the sil- ah! A level 55 leopard that somehow got stronger over time."
He was about to speak of the leopard's existence level, then he remembered he was the only one who could see it, so he kept quiet.
"Level 55!!!"
The emperor was visibly angry, he turned to Ralphie and was about to question him as to why he let the both of them fight the monster before being stopped by the duke.
"Calm down, Rudeus, there's more to this he isn't telling us, right Evan?"
"Obviously, I never said we did it on our own, that'd be suicide.
We had help, well they were mostly useless individually but their numbers made up for it, about 50 of them I think?"
He looked at Ralphie for confirmation, who then nodded and followed up.
"Originally 53 to be exact, 18 perished in battle leaving 35 idiots remaining."
"Idiots?"
It was rare for Ralphie to insult someone so the duchess was surprised, Ralphie nodded and explained the events that occurred after the battle.
"They dared to argue with the young master for the spoils of battle after he did almost all the work, shameless idiots."
"What happened to them?"
The duke questioned with a tone of annoyance.
"Young master spared their lives."
The reply caused the duke to look at Evan strangely, the 'Evan' he knew was someone who did not take any insults, whether big or small.
Yet that same Evan let people who dared to argue with him for the spoils of his hard work? Something was definitely wrong.
'He's changed.'
Evan guessed the duke's thoughts and laughed lightly, his eyes seemed to flash as he said.
"People change daily father, even me, I'm not the same person I was a few months ago."
The duke did not understand the true meaning behind Evan's words, Laurene on the other hand, looked at him with suspicion.
'He changed too much, especially after he gained his hero title.'
The Evan she had met a few times at tea parties and balls was the typical authoritative noble son, the current carefree Evan was the exact opposite of that.
Evan had already given up acting like the duke's son for months now, it was too much of a hassle for someone as wilful as he was.
Ralphie interrupted the strange silence with his next words that surprised all of them again.
"The young master also seemed to know about a secret entrance to a lower floor, one with a level 300 monster."
"Ralphie!"
'Shit, I was too preoccupied with those children and I forgot to bribe him.'
[He was caught again!]
[Hey that scary lady is still there you know?]
[Leave her alone, she's sleeping]
[We can run when she wakes up]
[Yes, run run run!]
He ignored the voices in his ear and turned to the Duke to explain, but was cut off by the emperor, Rudeus.
"How did you get access to such information?"
Evan clicked his tongue in annoyance, he had not thought of a solution because he was preoccupied with other matters, namely, dealing with the little critters that had been making noise in his ear for a while now.
Surprisingly Laurene helped him out,
"It's your unique skill, isn't it?"
He was stunned at first but he quickly grabbed onto the lifeline she was holding out for him.
The existence of Pride, a demon of level over 700 and one of the invaders from a thousand years ago. One with a track record of defeating the heroes multiple times, was not something that could be made public.
At least not for now.
"I wanted to hide that, you know."
"Didn't you say you had no unique skill?"
The duke asked skeptically, he recalled Evan denying that he had a unique skill before. Evan, however, replied with a grin.
"I said unique skills weren't common, never said I didn't have one."
"Are you trying to mess with me?"
The Duke was slowly becoming annoyed, however, Evan laughed and decided to come clean about the fact that he was not allowed to tell them the details of his skill.
It was to prepare for when they would eventually have to disclose the details of their skills along with the incoming demon threat.
He decided to consider this as laying the groundwork.
"Oh please, I got better things to do. I couldn't even tell you about the skill even if I wanted to."
"Huh? What does that mean?"
Laurene looked at Evan in suspicion after the empress' question.
'He couldn't possibly...?'
"Appraise me and see if you can find it, you won't. Only I can see it."
He had hidden his skills with concealment so even if he was appraised, it would not be seen, even if they possessed full appraisal.
However, it would be revealed if the one with full appraisal was higher levelled than him but full appraisal was not exactly a common skill like the normal appraisal.
"Only you can see it, what sort of skill is that?"
The duchess asked Evan while everyone else, Laurene excluded, nodded in affirmation. They wanted to know.
Evan, however, face palmed loudly and repeated his earlier words with a tone of annoyance.
"What part of 'I couldn't even tell you about the skill even if I wanted to' did you all not understand?"
"And I'm asking what kind of skill is that??"
"As I said, I can't say."
"What sort of nonsense is that, why can't you talk about your skill?"
"If I could tell you the reason why, I'd rather just tell you about the skill itself."
"Who are you trying to fool? There's no such skill like that?"
"Fine, I'd tell you, if anything happens it's your fault."
"Huh?"
The duchess asked once again, as if she was oblivious to Evan's annoyance despite him giving a somewhat positive answer.
Laurene on the other hand couldn't help but let out a shocked voice as she heard Evan speak.
At this point, the emperor who saw Laurene's expression of shock, noticed something was wrong.
'Laurene knew about the unique skill, but she never said its name, there must be a reason why. And her expression as he said he was going to talk about the skill, it was one of shock and fear.
She has the ability to tell lies from truth, if she knows the reason he can't speak of his skill and his words of right now were true, that means she's scared of whatever the consequence of speaking about the skill is.'
All these thoughts did not take more than a second due to Rudeus' thought acceleration skill. However, even if he figured out all that in less than a second, It was after Evan had declared his intention to finally speak of the skill and he noticed Laurene's reaction.
In other words, it was too late for him to stop Evan from speaking.
"Evan Don't!"
Laurene's scream rang out, surprising the empress who was holding her, however, she was too late.
"The skill's name is th-###rgc#~##jhv@####-"
His words were garbled the moment he attempted to speak of the skill's name.
[He's bleeding!]
[Call a lightie!]
[A lightie should come heal him]
[The lighties ran away from that scary woman]
[Oh no!]
Evan coughed up a bit of blood, it wasn't much but it shocked the others who were in the room, especially the duchess.
They could not understand how speaking of a skill caused him to cough up blood.
Such a situation was out of the norm and did not conform to the common sense they knew all their lives.
Evan's consciousness slowly dimmed, at the last moment, he saw a message in front of him.
[The goddess 'Artemisia' questions your sanity]
Then everything went black.