Your Majesty's money, why don't you engrave my name on it?

"We demand compensation!" "Liar!" "You old geezer (a slang term from Sinking Iron Fortress)!"

One after another, shouts of curses blocked the intersection, but what blocked the road even more was the huge crowd of onlookers. The carriages of Raslaufer and his companions, which had been replaced with larger models than when they traveled, were now completely blocked outside. To get in, they would have to trample the crowd.

"What's going on?" Angelita asked, puzzled, as she and the others peered out of the carriage. They saw that the carved metal gate of the house, which was integrated with the garden, was wide open, and a dozen men and women dressed in various styles, but all dressed as nobles, were standing in the courtyard, loudly venting their emotions at the tightly closed white lacquered door.

As nobles, this behavior was extremely inappropriate, and both Angelita and Marie frowned. However, if it were just one person acting this way, it could be explained as a loss of composure. But for so many people to simultaneously disregard etiquette and reputation by publicly hurling insults in the street, there must be some underlying reason.

“This looks somewhat similar to a situation,” Daisy stuck out her tongue and looked at the others. “Don’t you think… they’re probably here to collect a debt?”

Chapter 476 The Deed is Here

“Collecting debts? No, not really,” Mary frowned upon hearing this. “I’ve gone to other people’s houses with my father to collect debts, and I’ve been asked for debts myself, but in any case, both sides were always polite to each other. Even if they couldn’t reach an agreement, they would threaten each other, but it would never be like this… What kind of behavior is this?”

They're like thugs!

Although there are often similarities between the two, nobles tend to abhor such analogies and will do everything in their power to distinguish themselves from the latter. On the other hand, they will try their best to emulate the former.

Therefore, it seems that none of the people blocking the door, whether they are in front or behind, should have done such a thing.

“You two haven’t really broken ties yet,” Daisy said with an air of experience. “Think about it, what if your family had staked all, no, seventy or eighty percent of their assets on something or someone, and then didn’t get a single penny back, and the other party had no intention of compensating you?”

“Is that even a question? Just arrest him and hang him,” Angelita looked at the others with feigned innocence, spreading her hands. “Why? Putting someone like that in prison is a waste of resources.”

“So back in my hometown, there was an alchemist who didn’t dare go back to see the emperor because of this, and he went straight to the sea,” Daisy’s lips twitched. “But that was what the emperor did. What about nobles like Mary’s family? Or even less nobles? Their titles might not even be as high as the master of this place.”

Collecting antiques is not a hobby that can be used to make money. Siti also said that this collector has a certain title.

"Well..." The group thought for a moment, perhaps the people at the door also had their own reasons...?

However, it seemed they couldn't simply park the carriage at the door. Raslaufer opened the carriage door, jumped down first, and spread his arms to the sides, creating a passage for the onlookers.

Doble had no manners of asking people to "take it" or "show mercy," and he didn't even bother to say a word of advice, which naturally caused a lot of dissatisfaction. But when the passersby saw Reslaufer's physique, clothing, and that giant sword, they all consciously began to make way for him—after all, no one wanted to become the one being watched while watching a show.

The nobles at the gate quickly noticed the group of seven or eight people, along with a strange two-legged beast.

"Good, looks like we've run into a tough nut!" A middle-aged nobleman with reddened eyes whistled and took two steps to greet Leslaufer. "Brother, are you here to cause trouble for this old man too? How about we break down the door! That lame donkey has been keeping his door tightly shut for three days now, and he hasn't even come out of the house. We haven't been able to see him at all!"

"What do you want with him?" Leslaufer nodded at the hot-tempered man, but showed no intention of directly and violently "knocking on the door." "Are you all together?"

“No, but the reason is the same,” a woman dressed like a wealthy lady reached out and touched the fur on her shoulder. Her hoarse voice seemed to prove that she was definitely not in this state of composure during the earlier uproar. “I asked him to bring me a few Corazonde sheepskins and chinchilla furs while he was collecting antiques. As you all know, Corazonde has the best sheepskins in the world, which are not only very valuable, but also not easy to order.”

She went on and on, calculating the costs for the person next to her: "One sheepskin costs nearly a thousand Essen gold coins (about sixty Imperial gold coins). I ordered seven in total, plus the favors my family has done..."

The men around gasped in astonishment. They knew that the sheepskins in Corazonde were expensive, but they didn’t know they were this expensive. Their families were all similarly poor, and this woman had spent almost eight or nine months’ worth of net income just for these seven sheepskins!

The price of the squirrel fur coat was a little higher, and although she only bought one, it was still a considerable sum.

Angelita nodded knowingly. The income of nobles without fiefdoms is much less. Although they do not have to bear the cost of maintaining the castles and manors in their fiefdoms, the expenses for banquets and servants are just as unavoidable. Even if they do not follow Magpares' standards, they probably cannot save much money in a year. This large sum of money has all gone down the drain, so she certainly has a reason to curse in the street.

But... seven pieces? Why so many? Even if it's for appearances, there's a limit. Is it a bit too extravagant to give the whole family an expensive fur coat?

“She didn’t buy it just for herself, Miss Anne.”

A somewhat familiar voice came from behind them. Raslaufer and the others looked up and were surprised to find a familiar face – Lecorney, the teacher who had used magic to help Raslaufer at the banquet. He also looked somewhat haggard at the moment.

“It’s you,” Leslaufer nodded to him. “I really didn’t expect that a priest would be involved.”

“I… sigh,” Le Corneille sighed, as if resigned to his fate, “If we were only buying things for our own families, it wouldn’t be so undignified, but besides ourselves, we all have relatives and friends…”

"How much do you earn?" Mary interrupted him rudely.

“Well, it’s just the purchase price, about five to ten percent,” the priest said, his face flushing slightly. “And it’s prepaid, since that’s the rule for antique dealers living here.”

“You see, as a believer of Serak, I also have some friends in other churches. Some of them may not be able to do this kind of thing because of their faith, so I have to do it for them. Almost everyone here is in the same situation.”

Therefore, when the goods disappear, it not only means that their money is gone, but also that their relationships and social connections will be lost, and things may even get worse. What need is there for them to maintain their dignity? Getting the goods or money back is the greatest dignity they can have!

"He made excuses before, saying he had hired adventurers to search, but after searching for so long, there's still no result!" the nobleman who had spoken first said bitterly. "It was clearly just a way to stall for time! If we hadn't been blocking him here, that old bastard might have run away under the cover of darkness!"

This wasn't the antique collector making excuses; he did indeed send out adventurers, but Siti and her team's progress was clearly very slow, and there was one particular setback...

Leslaufer turned his head and met the pale faces of the three adventurers—their mission was not to retrieve all the goods, but only to find the cat statue! Did the employer send people to find all the goods before? But why hire them to do the same thing?

Or perhaps... thankfully there's a power of attorney that can prove their innocence!

The three exchanged a glance, and Iron Jaw quickly pulled out a folded parchment soaked in blood from her armor. However, when she opened it, the three were immediately dumbfounded!

There were no words on it at all, not even ink stains blurred by blood; it was a blank page!

"This is--"

The three men broke out in a cold sweat. Just then, the tightly closed, beautiful white-painted door was opened from the inside with the sound of unlocking. A plump, slightly hunchbacked old man walked out, leaning on a thick crystal cane, his voice full of vigor.

In his hand lay a clearly written contract, and as all eyes turned to him, he began to gesticulate his tongue:

"Friends, I wasn't lying or trying to evade responsibility; I did indeed send mercenaries to retrieve the goods! See, they've already returned, haven't they?"

"To prove that everything I've said is true, please look, here is an employment contract!"

Please take one day off.

Every time I go home for vacation, it takes a whole day to get ready (but it doesn't happen the next time I go back, which is strange).

Chapter 477 The Antique Dealer's Scheme

"It really is them?!" No one paid attention to whether the deed in the old man's hand was real or fake. Although this was not a casino, pairs of eyes like those of gamblers were all fixed on Leslaufer and the Ironjaw and the others behind him.

Those who were particularly close by witnessed Le Corneur's extremely respectful attitude towards Raslaufer, and their eyes shone with an almost palpable hope.

“I’m sorry, it wasn’t me,” Leslaufer shrugged, but instead of making way for the three adventurers behind him who were as pale as corpses, he stepped forward and onto the steps at the door. “However, I did come back this time because of those goods.”

"Now you can all take a break for a while. Now that the person involved has come out, I'll take the lead in talking to him, shall I?"

The antique collector frowned, sizing up Dubul: "You rude fellow! Who do you think you are? Those guys in the barracks... I am—"

“If you’re talking about that guy who was advocating replacing mercenaries with standing armies the other day, let me kill him,” Raslaw said with a smile, but as his tall frame approached step by step, the old man who had just been smug at the door almost fell to the ground. “If you don’t want to go with them, you’d better do as I say.”

“Your Excellency, this man recently resolved that demonic invasion,” Leconier chimed in from behind. “I personally witnessed him slay three demons—including that one, Scheinhailig—so in short, I personally agree with him speaking to you on my behalf.”

“I agree.” “I have no objection.” “I just want to get my goods back, or my money back.”

With the priest as guarantor, the creditors' expressions softened considerably. What they saw was this old man, known for his eccentric temper, trembling before Leslaufer, completely at his mercy.

They can't do it, so why not let this man do it?

"Schain...he's dead?"

The antique dealer seemed to live in Ironforge, and after a moment of bewilderment, he nodded and said, "Alright... good, it's good that he died. That kid was always trying to get my grandson and granddaughter involved in his messes. You killed him, that's a good thing."

"In that case, come in. We can talk. Sure."

The white-lacquered gate quickly closed again in front of the group of minor nobles, but this time, no one shouted curses. Some of them quietly turned their heads and looked around, seemingly searching for their goods that had been swept away or destroyed by the young dragon.

"Hey, do you guys think it might be that...?" A sharp-eyed person pointed to the roadside in the distance, where Reslaufer and the others' carriage was parked. "Our stuff..."

"Why don't we go take a look? It's ours anyway, they can't just renege on their debt, can they? That's not fair."

"You go if you want, I don't dare. We're all tied together, can we stand up to a demon?"

“I can’t say for sure when I was young,” said the man with a noticeable scar on his left cheek, who might have been a mercenary a decade or two ago. “But let’s forget about it now; there’s no point in provoking anyone.”

"It's bad luck."

"I'm a nobleman now, just like you! And you're still nitpicking my words?!"

"Actually, that's not a grammatical error, it's you..."

It's hard to say whether these two guys who suddenly started causing trouble were unintentional or deliberate, but in the end they attracted all the attention, and no one else dared to make a move on the Reislaufer vehicles.

The people inside the room also turned their attention away. Without needing the antique dealer's signal, a waiter stepped forward to help and drew a thick curtain.

"So, tell me, what exactly happened?" The antique dealer leaned on his crystal cane, head bowed, but his eyes darted upwards at Raslaufer. "You didn't succeed, did you?"

"The situation is more difficult than expected—"

Siti tried to explain, but was interrupted: "Shh, shh, I know you guys are unreliable. I don't want to hear what you have to say. I want to hear what he has to say."

He pointed at Reslaufer.

“The situation is more difficult than expected,” Raslaw repeated Siti’s words without being interrupted, “A red dragon robbed you, I don’t know if you can understand what that means.”

"A...an adult red dragon?"

“Young, most likely,” Leslaufer waited a moment, but the old man did not react. “It seems that when you received the news of the cargo being hijacked, you already knew this part for sure.”

“Of course, so I didn’t initially plan to send these guys,” the antique dealer said, pointing his cane at the three adventurers. “I remember there were four of you, right? One of you was lost?”

There was no mockery in his tone, but sometimes an old person's "I knew it" is less convincing than mockery.

"Then why did you send them to their deaths?" Bella couldn't help but raise her voice slightly.

"What adventurers do isn't just suicide?" the old man sneered. "I know, those legends, tales, epics—I'm an old guy who loves collecting old stuff, who knows more about these things than me? They all think they can become those characters in the stories, but guess what, most of them just become a plot device..."

"Adventurers entered a certain secret realm, only to find corpses piled up like mountains of bones..." The bard finished describing the second half of the sentence for him.

It's obvious that Siti and the others are all among those described as "exhausted" and "mountainous".

“That’s pretty much the idea,” the antique dealer nodded. “But then I thought, if it’s a dragon, I might have a hard time finding adventurers who can complete the quest. In that case, why not use some readily available suckers as scapegoats?”

"Your deed is blank now, isn't it? Don't bother looking for it, I did it."

"So, if you succeed, great; if you fail, great. It will be you who will be unable to defend yourselves in front of so many people, not this old man like me." The antique dealer spoke as if no one else was there, seemingly completely unconcerned that Iron Jaw's clenched fist, cracking loudly, might smash into his face in the next second.

All of this was planned by him. Just as those outside received some "hardship fees" and "favor fees" from their respective relatives and friends, he naturally had to collect his share as well, and it was best not to give it back—even if he had no choice, he couldn't give it all back.

“However,” he looked at Leslaufer, “I suspect there’s more to the story, because instead of one less person in my house, there are so many more. Tell me, what happened?”

Chapter 478 Incomplete Knowledge

Raslaufer's eyes never left that wrinkled old face as he assessed how much of the other person's words were false.

“That cat,” he paused, giving the other person time to react, “do you remember it?”

"The porcelain cat statue, the thing I commissioned them to find specifically," the antique dealer nodded. "Of course I remember it. What happened to it?"

Dubul waved his hand, and Tieya immediately placed it heavily on the coffee table.

"Hmm...you actually succeeded, I didn't expect that," the old man took out a monocle from his chest, bent over and leaned closer to examine it carefully, "Hmm, there's no mistake, whether it's that one or not, it's a genuine article after all."

"Whether it's that one or not?!" Ironjaw could no longer contain himself. He lunged forward and grabbed the old man by the collar. "Thran died for this!"

"I didn't kill them. Haven't I questioned your abilities?" The antique dealer said expressionlessly. "Or do you think that because I tampered with things, someone died?"

"Do you mean he won't die if I tell you to bring all the goods back?"

Angelita couldn't stand it anymore and interrupted the old man: "Enough! You're changing the subject! What we need to ask now is about this statue of you!"

"How much do you know about it? Why did you choose it in particular?"

“How much do you know? I know it’s a genuine post-Inazumatian artifact,” the so-called “post-Inazumatian” refers to the period after the death of Richard the Great and the ensuing infighting among his sons. “I had my client pay special attention to a few areas that were easy to forge, and he was sure it was genuine. I authorized him to buy it and bring it back.”

"That's it?"

"That's right." The old man answered frankly and quickly, not as if he were lying.

"Then why did you specifically choose this item as the subject of your commission?"

Raslaufer's question made the old man frown: "Why? Isn't it obvious? It's made of porcelain, and it's very easy for it to break for any reason, which would prevent them from completing their mission. That way, when they question me about why I cheated them, I can act like a decent person with a clear conscience."

“If you can’t even protect one of them, how can I expect you to protect all the goods?”

“So it seems it’s not really worth anything,” Leslaufer said, staring at the other person. “Then I’m going to put it in my house as a decoration. You don’t mind, do you?”

The antique dealer seemed a little stunned this time, as if pondering the meaning of Reslaufer's question. After a moment, he spread out one hand. "The purchase price is yours. I have no objections."

In Dragonfield's plan, the statue should be considered as having been bought "by chance," rather than having been pre-ordered by someone in East Inassus, and therefore it is now the property of the antique dealer.

“If you had your client looked a little closer, they might have noticed that this is a magical item,” Leslaufer went further. “Even so, you’d still sell it to me at cost price?”

“Unless you threaten…” “No, I won’t threaten you on this.”

“Then we’ll have to discuss this,” the antique dealer hesitated. “I need to know what kind of spell it is so I can price it more accurately.”

"You'll probably never know—it was shattered, and although it was repaired, the magic inside has completely failed."

“So…” The old man’s expression was strange, as if he had a dead rat stuffed in his mouth. “Then why did you bother telling me this? Just take it.”

Many of the antiques that have survived have magical properties, and even more do not. If porcelain weren't so rare in Eastern Inas, he might not have let the client acquire this cat statue.

It seemed he truly didn't know what the secret was. Raslaufer and his companions exchanged glances.