More than half a day had gone by after Satoshi took off on the ferry from Sulus. Now he had finally arrived in Xinjia-kor.
The migration process for entry was actually quite strict within the Island Province of Xinjia-kor. Luckily, Satoshi had with him the Press Credentials that Oda gave him, which made the officers look more kindly upon him.
Satoshi was now seated on top his vehicle, just tens of meters away from the gate of the Royal Complex of Imperial Descendant. The sight of his dingy and old vehicle made a strange contrast against the modern and sparky clean surroundings.
He quickly went over the notes that Oda had sent him onto his communication terminal and frowned. He decided to give his voice message another replay to see if there was anything he could use to get out of this particular task.
[BEEP! Playing Message BEEP!]
"I have looked around and found some clues about the identity of the suspected Grand Master. The female one actually came from an ancient family from Istindi, which migrated their whole clan to the Frozen South wilderness several decades ago.
I will look into that one myself, so you take care of the other one because you are actually close to where the lead should be at this moment.
Master Immortal Outreach was the winner of Stellar Assembly of Eminence almost a hundred years ago. In some sense, he is an old monster.
He single-handedly won against his competitors and proceeded to challenge the present Master-ranked competitors. He was beaten, not surprisingly, but not after an admirable display of talent, which was why he earned the honorary title of Master.
Now, this next piece of information came from Mulah. He said his boss, Efram, was actually a competitor on that Stellar Assembly of Eminence. He was quite young back then and didn't place very high but he got quite well acquainted with Master Immortal Outreach.
Mulah wasn't sure what Efram might know, so you need to dig it up yourself. He said you only need to show the medallion he gave you and you should be granted an audience.
Now I know you would most likely try to get out of this assignment, but let me remind you that we might not have any other lead to go on if you did, Since most of the possible leads we have had been scrapped off.
So I'm really counting on you for this one."
[BEEP! End of message BEEP!]
Satoshi went quiet after he heard the message for a second time. He really couldn't find any way out of this assignment, and he really really preferred not to use the medallion if he could. But the way Oda said 'counting on you' weighed heavily in his mind.
"Fuck!" Satoshi cursed as he started his vehicle.
He slowly drove toward the gate of the complex and made up his mind. He decided to try to find another way to gain an audience with Efram.
When Satoshi got close enough to the gate, the guards within reacted and walked out of their guard post. Satoshi stopped his vehicle and walked closer when the guard signaled that he could approach.
Satoshi showed the guard his Press Credentials and told the guard what he came for. The guard took the credentials and went into the post to check with his superiors. After awhile he returned with Satoshi's credentials and a Press tag for guests.
"The General Household Affair will take care of your inquiry inside, but we cannot guarantee you an audience yet. You may enter for now and make your case yourself."
Satoshi thanked the guard and entered the complex with his vehicle. Passing the front gate of the Royal Complex was an entirely different world. The road was well-maintained and very smooth, almost like it was made out of a colossal slab of white granite. The entire sides of the road were lined with succulent greeneries of variety that Satoshi had never even seen before.
Even the air itself felt different. Satoshi felt like his mental state was slowly refreshed as he took in mouthfuls of breath.
After driving for a bit, Satoshi finally had a sight of the first building on the wide long road. It was a huge pristine white building with massive pillars. The doors and windows in this building were several times bigger than your regular ones. On top of the main door, there was a very detailed golden crest of Imperial Descendant with one word written below it: HOUSEHOLD.
Satoshi was taken aback by the sight of this building. The sheer size made him think this must be made for giants! Satoshi had indeed not seen too many luxurious buildings but he thought it would be very difficult to top this one. The Salted Bays Mayor's mansion was like a mudhouse compared to this, and this was only the first building he saw.
Satoshi parked his vehicle a little off to the side near a row of other parked vehicles. He looked at the other expensive-looking vehicles that were parked there and felt his vehicle looked really out of place here.
Some of the vehicles particularly stood out to Satoshi and made him feel like he had seen them before.
After he was done, Satoshi quickly went up the stairs leading to the building and entered through the wide-open central door. There wasn't even a guard posted up front and the inside of this building looked more like the lobby of a very fancy hotel. Satoshi couldn't help but look around the large lobby and its exquisite interior.
"Brother Nuno??"
A faint voice of surprise came from somewhere in the lobby and attracted his attention. He looked around the sparsely populated lobby and noticed a man was staring at him.
"No way…"
It was Inigo. Satoshi couldn't believe he would coincidentally meet this man here. They had separated ways when they were still on the ferry. Satoshi had used Oda's incoming voice message to get away from his group.
"I can't believe we would meet again here." Inigo's face displayed an obvious sign of surprise and amazement.
"Yeah, me too. I thought I had completely lost my chance to say goodbye." Satoshi said politely while walking toward Inigo.
Inigo gestured toward a group of people that occupied a small seating area within the lobby, signaling Satoshi to walk with him.
"Well, we are all here with the young masters, so you still have your chance," Inigo said while smiling.
Satoshi looked ahead and saw Trudeau and Juneau, surrounded by their personal bodyguards. Trudeau's face looked sour while Juneau's was as indifferent and aloof as usual.
Trudeau's face lit up a little when he saw Satoshi coming toward him. He almost got up from his seat but managed to stop himself. Something Juneau said after they went their own way had changed something in the way Trudeau saw and acted around Satoshi.
"It's you again. Didn't expect you to even deliver to the Royal Complex." Juneau as he saw Satoshi.
Satoshi didn't even bother with Juneau's rude remark, and asked Inigo instead "So, since it seems like you also have a business here..how do you usually do things around here? I don't even see a receptionist or anything…"
Juneau was ticked that Satoshi would just blatantly ignore him so he jumped at Satoshi's question. "Of course we have business here. Why else would we be here, sightseeing?"
Inigo felt helpless about the current situation. He could feel that Satoshi had certain misgivings about his young master and completely understood that it was due to his young master's arrogance. In fact, Inigo was quite used to this kind of thing happening wherever his young master would go.
"You see the door I came out of? Just go over there and a Hall personnel will shortly attend to you. Then you can tell them what business you have."
Satoshi looked at the door that Inigo mentioned, it was located toward the center of the lobby.
"I see, thank you then."
Satoshi looked at Trudeau and was about to say his goodbyes. He reminded Satoshi of Ashya and Xiahn and wanted to at least leave with a goodbye.
"BOYS!!"
A sudden loud and cheery call came out of the side door close to the seating area. It came from a young man with an official uniform of the Imperial Descendant's Hall Personnel.
Juneau and Trudeau got up from their seats at the same time when this man came, "Uncle!"
"Hahaha, sorry to make you wait, there is an urgent matter that suddenly came and we need to take care of it."
"It's okay, Uncle. It's our fault to suddenly come to visit." Trudeau said.
"Well, Uncle is a very important personnel for the Imperial Descendant so it's only natural that you have urgent matters to take care of," Juneau said loudly as if trying to make everyone hear what he said.
"Hahaha, no no, it's not like that. Your Uncle is just regular personnel here you know…"
There was a sign of subdued pride and humility on the man's face. He obviously loved to be referred to by his nephews like this but wouldn't want his colleagues to hear about it lest he would be ridiculed.
Satoshi watched this from the side and gave Inigo a nod as a sign of gratitude and goodbye. He didn't think he would be able to interject and said his goodbyes to Trudeau at this point. So he decided to just go do what he came to do.
Satoshi went toward the door Inigo mentioned and waited for a bit before he decided to knock on it. He waited for a bit accompanied by the occasional sounds of laughter and conversation from the distance that reached him. Most of them came from Juneau's exaggerated responses.
Satoshi gave the door another knock, longer than the previous one. He had waited for a bit but wasn't sure from what Inigo said on how long he would need to wait. What if no one heard his knocks? Then he would have been waiting needlessly.
After some more time passed, there was no sign that an attendant would come. Satoshi had started pondering if he should just ask Trudeau's uncle for help. He is a personnel, so he would at least have some way to notify his colleagues.
Another one of Juneau's exaggerated laughs reached Satoshi and made him really reluctant. But he had no other idea of what to do.
"Tch!!"
Satoshi steeled himself and decided to just ask the man after all. He didn't want to spend more valuable travel time here if he could.
Satoshi was completely stunned by Juneau's sudden exclamation as soon as he got closer to the group, "So it is Young Master Satoshi!!"