Ale's secret weapon, the one he was forced to use on his father, it's-
'Cuteness of course!'
"But father, I gave them my words. And it's been a while since the last time I went outside our territory. Please, father? I promise I'll behave myself."
Ale made his expression as desperate and sad as he could and pleaded.
Seeing his son acting all cute just to get his permission, the duke finally gave in.
"Fine. But you'll have to take some people with you. I'm worried about your safety. "
"Thank you, father! Then we'll leave after having breakfast."
"Alright. And here, take this. You'll need money if you go out."
He wrote a check that had more than enough numbers of zeros after the '1' and handed it to Ale.
"But I already have eno-"
"Take it."
Ale wanted to say that he already had enough money but was stopped midways. Sensing his father's strong desire to give him the check, he stopped protesting and took it from his father's hand.
After completing their breakfast, Rudy, his party and Ale prepared to leave the mansion when 3 more people joined them.
Kevin was obviously one of them. The other two were among the best knights in the dukedom.
Phil and Gary were both recruited by Ale two years ago. Within these two years, they managed to reach semi-sword master level and surprised everyone(Not Ale of course, since he already knew about their talent).
Now you might wonder why they'd be surprised, normally, it takes a gifted one to practice diligently for more than 20 years to reach the sword master level. That's how hard it is.
"But why are you two going as well?"
It was more comfortable to stay and practice here inside the duchy and hone their skills rather than following him as escorts, is what Ale meant.
"Young master, we volunteered to go because we wanted to be your guard."
"That's right. You need protection."
"So you're just going to keep an eye on me and make sure I don't cause trouble?"
"That's-..."
They both remained silent at his question.
'Hahaha.. Am I really that big a troublemaker?'
Ale was right but wrong at the same time. Ale did cause trouble but only for himself and the reason always had to do with helping others or improving the territory, at least from their perspective.
Everyone, from his family members to his knights, were all concerned about him and doted on him.
They only wanted to pamper this boy who always did everything for others, never thinking for himself. All they wanted was to protect Ale from himself and his weird self-harming ideas.
Phil and Gary were no different. On top of that, they were once saved by Ale and blessed with everything they have right now.
"By the way, when's Jose coming back? I wanted to see him before leaving. "
"He's scheduled to come the day after tomorrow"
The answer came from Kevin. As usual, he knew everything.
As such, the group of 9 people left on their journey.
Back to the present.
Hearing the news of Ale's departure, the townspeople gave him lots of food, fruits and materials needed for their journey.
Naturally, Phil and Gary carried them for him.
After crossing the market, they got on a carriage and left for the port.
After the carriage started moving, Rudy's party finally managed to come to their senses and started asking Ale all sorts of questions.
"Why are you so famous? The folks seemed to truly love you."
"I never saw any noble playing with commoner kids before. They weren't even scared of you."
"What were those weird gadgets we saw here and there? Does your territory have any genius craftsman?"
"You're weird."
Ron, Alice, Stuart and Ash, all four of them expressed their opinion at once as if they couldn't keep quiet anymore.
Poor Rudy didn't manage to say anything while they kept pouring their questions and thoughts.
Ale was surprised at their curiosity and shock but also understood where they came from.
So, he patiently replied to them one by one.
"I was often told that I'm not noble-like at all. And since I like kids, we naturally got along."
"We used to play at the beach together. But that's a secret!"
"Oh, and those gadgets were made by me cause I was lazy and wanted an easier life and I just selfishly made others use them as well."
"Guess all that makes me pretty weird. Haha!"
He finished his answer with that self-realization. He realized, once again, for the nth time, just how weird he was. It wasn't the first time after all, that someone called him weird.
"The kid part shouldn't be too shocking seeing how you were playing in the wat-ack!"
Rudy kicked Ron's leg and didn't let him finish his sentence.
'Damn it! Why did I do that!!! If only I composed myself back then...'
Feeling embarrassed by his past action, Ale let out an awkward laugh as his ears turned red.
Stuart changed the topic at that moment and asked him about the gadgets and their uses. As Ale was explaining them to him, they lost track of time and arrived at the port.
Ron went to secure a boat for them and managed to get a good one after a short while.
The boatman was a middle-aged man twice Ale's size.
'I guess this job requires physical power and tact evenly.' Ale thought to himself.
After glancing over him and seeing Phil and Gary, the old man finally started speaking.
"Seeing how you brought two soldiers with you, are you also aware of the rumors?"
"No. They're my friend. But what rumor are you talking about?"
Phil and Gary looked at Ale with sparkly eyes when he introduced them as his friends. The old man sighed and shook his head as he replied to Ale's question.
"Sigh... So you haven't. There were quite a few cases of boats sinking in the last few weeks due to unknown cause. And every time, not one person managed to return with their lives. As if they all just disappeared. People are scared out of their wits because of that."
Everyone stiffened up after listening to his story.
Rudy mumbled to himself in a voice that was small enough for only them to hear.
"A 'disaster'?"
'Disaster', a word that creates fear within the people of this world no matter how strong you are. Disasters are creatures of the dark born from the negative emotions of human heart.
They have their own ranking system and are ranked from 7-1.
Rank 7 disasters are rather easy to deal with but as the number lessens, their power increases by 10 fold. Rank 2 disasters can destroy multiple countries at once if not handled correctly.
Everyone fell into deep silence as they thought about the disasters.
After contemplating over things for a while, Rudy and Ale both decided to continue their journey as usual.
Since they still had one hour left before their departure, they decided to have their lunch in a nearby restaurant.
In a banner above the restaurant door, the words "Wine & Dine" were written beautifully. They entered the restaurant and picked a 10-people table for them.
Although the restaurant was pretty neat and clean the numbers of customers were rather pitiful. This helped them understand the severity of the situation.
After a few moments, the waiter came to take their order. Since they had a rough journey ahead of them, they decided to order lots of meat dishes and alcohol.
After a while, they served them their lunch. While having lunch, they could hear the customers around them gossiping about the recent incidents.
Some were talking about how many people had died or left town and also about their business not going well.
Some of them were talking about how the authorities decided to turn a blind eye to the whole situation after they failed to solve the situation on the first attempt.
Ale was clenching his fist in order to control his anger after hearing everything.
Of course, he wasn't angry at the citizens for bad mouthing the authorities. He was angry at the authorities for trying to sweep the matter under the rug and not reporting it to the higher ups.
This was a serious matter that concerned the lives and safety of many citizens and they decided to hide the situation only because they didn't want others to know about their incompetence.
Since the port town was under Duke Edger, Ale's father's command and they were the citizens of the dukedom that he loved dearly, Ale couldn't accept the behavior of these officers and decided to do something about it as soon as possible.
When Ale was thinking about how to deal with the situation regarding these officers what he didn't manage to notice was that the people around him were starting to stare at him one by one.
It was clearly visible to them that Ale was mad at those bastards. They were thinking that maybe Ale was blaming himself for the suffering of the citizens. Phil and Gary wanted to comfort him saying it wasn't his fault but before they could speak, Rudy grabbed Ale's fist.
Ale was startled by Rudy's sudden action and looked at him blankly.
"Huh? Rudy?"
"....everyone?"
'Why's everyone staring at me like that? The hell...?'