Maximus stood up satisfied, leaving Aiouwen, who had been completely defeated by him.
It had been a long time since he fought like this. The duke now felt refreshed in both body and mind.
Fatigue? Not at all. He was a great knight. This amount of exercise was just a warm-up for him.
Anyway, his own rank was too high, making it hard to find a wife. So he might as well catch a few more elves…
Forget it. Maximus extinguished that thought. Hiding an assassin who tried to kill the former king in the Royal Capital was already very dangerous. If he weren’t the regent duke, he probably wouldn’t be able to suppress this matter. If he hid a few more, then the All-Father Church Inquisition would surely get anxious.
Thinking of this, a sense of powerlessness surged in the duke’s heart. Those religious lunatics—clearly all working for the All-Father—why were they so stubborn?
“Recover a bit. I’ll be back tonight.” Maximus tossed that sentence, then tidied his clothes and left the dungeon. Although he no longer had the worries of kingdom affairs, he still had to complete the tasks given by the All-Father.
The king was right. The Great Expedition should indeed stop.
Aiouwen trembled. Her eyes gradually regained clarity. Although her face was still flushed, she had at least recovered her ability to think.
Feeling the fullness in her body, Aiouwen sighed softly.
Just now, it was her who initiated again.
…
The neck ring really worked. Although Luo En seemed to have some other intentions in it, Astraea now truly didn’t need Disguise Magic to walk openly in human society.
Without having to maintain the magic constantly, the little elf’s condition had improved a lot. Right now, she was holding Luo En’s hand and excitedly pointing at the towering city wall ahead.
“So tall! I’ve never seen such a high wall in the Elven City-States!”
The little elf couldn’t help being so excited. Even Luo En, as a human, was in high spirits. They had walked for a full month to reach the Royal Capital from Port Tils.
A month of arduous journey!
Although Astraea’s magic assisted them, the journey was still too dangerous. Along the way, they encountered all kinds of bandits and magical beasts.
Astraea also got used to the feeling of wearing a foreign object around her neck. Now she had learned to ignore the various gazes humans cast at her.
She just didn’t know why she could sense envy from some of those looks.
The owners of these gazes were some women, and some… were Sichuan lolis.
“By the way, Luo En, I always feel like you’re a bit different from before.” Astraea blinked, looking at the amazingly handsome squire in her eyes.
“Where is the difference?” Luo En asked.
“You… have you gotten a lot taller?”
The little elf stood on tiptoe but found she couldn’t reach Luo En’s head. So Luo En bent down so that Astraea’s small hand could touch the top of his head.
The little elf, having touched his head, let out a satisfied sound. “Hehe… In the past month, you seem to change every day.”
Astraea had emptied her mind. She no longer thought about cognitive issues or anything. She just told herself to interact with him as before.
In other words, the little elf was now like acting. No matter what Luo En looked like in her eyes, she kept silently reciting in her heart that it was just an ordinary person’s face.
But then again, at least Luo En now looked like a total handsome guy in her eyes. It was nice to look at and pleasing to the eye…
But when did she stop liking to look at beauties and start liking to look at handsome men instead? Maybe it was because she had seen too many beautiful elves in the Elven City-States.
Luo En straightened up, but felt a little uneasy.
This past month, he had been growing taller—from only 1.6 meters to now a full 2 meters. The two-handed longsword that was taller than him before, he could now plant it on the ground like the generals in paintings.
Luo En knew clearly what caused him to grow so tall: it was nothing other than the blessing of a deity. The deity’s blessing not only increased his strength but also improved his physique.
It could be said that the only reason he was still a squire was that no one had knighted him.
So who should he seek to knight him? The king? Forget it. The king probably wouldn’t give a damn about him, a baron’s son who popped out of nowhere.
Generally, the fastest way to get knighted was to earn military merit, and the fastest place to earn military merit was naturally the army.
But the kingdom’s army was still fighting in the North. Luo En didn’t think his little elf teacher would want him to join the army and then beat up her own people.
Furthermore, Luo En was afraid of this power that he hadn’t earned through training. Since the deity could grant him this power, when the deity stopped watching him, would this power be taken back?
Luo En had been troubled by this question for a long time. He had no idea what part of him was worth the deity’s attention. So until he figured out his confusion, he probably wouldn’t accept any knighting.
Unfortunately, Astraea was not a knight, and she couldn’t answer Luo En’s question.
“Hmm, let’s enter the city. The Royal Capital should be much more prosperous than other places.” Luo En said casually. He had no goal now; he was completely following the little elf’s wishes.
As the core of the Human Kingdom, the Royal Capital was naturally incomparable to cities in other regions.
Just the 25-meter-high wall was proof enough, let alone the fact that the little elf’s keen magical perception allowed her to clearly capture the mana aura emanating from the powerful magic circles inscribed in the wall.
Astraea clicked her tongue and couldn’t help marveling at the powerful strength of the Human Kingdom.
Even the Elven Capital didn’t have a magic circle every 50 meters!
After getting closer, Astraea could see the defensive forces on the wall more clearly.
A tall knight in a blue helmet and blue armor led two priests of the All-Father Church, followed by dozens of well-equipped ordinary soldiers. Half of these soldiers carried something like black iron rods on their backs.
Astraea would never mistake it: those must be firearms!
Although the design was not as advanced as dwarven firearms, they were still genuine firearms. The little elf sighed once again that the elves were doomed.
What? Why repeat “again” so many times? That was because the little elf, combining her eighteen years of life experience to compare with the Human Kingdom, found that elves were truly crushed by humans in all aspects except appearance and lifespan!
Not to mention the conventional technology from her previous life, even in the field of magic technology, human cutting-edge magic circles were updated every ten to fifteen years on average. While the elves, who prided themselves as the darlings of the world, took a full fifty years to update their magic circles!
Astraea completely couldn’t understand what those elven sages who had lived for thousands of years were doing. Did their long lifespan bring them to hold tea parties for seven or eight hours every day and then spend an hour or even less studying their magic?
“Next.”
While Astraea was feeling gloomy about the future of elves, the blue-armored knight guarding the tall city gate was urging the next person to enter.
So Luo En led the little elf forward, holding her with one hand and leading Lily with the other.
The blue-armored knight saw Astraea and immediately placed his hand on the sword hilt at his waist. But the next moment, he noticed the neck ring on the little elf.
But his hand did not let go of the sword hilt. A soldier came to the little elf carrying a strangely shaped device.
The device looked like a barcode scanner in Astraea’s memory, but it was made of wood. The nature-loving little elf immediately recognized it as oak.
A relatively cheap wood with good mana conductivity.
Beep.
The scanner approached the neck ring on Astraea’s neck, then resonated with the magic circle on the collar, making a sound.
The soldier nodded and put away the magic device.
“Sir Knight, no problem.”
“Hmph.” The blue-armored knight snorted. “Take good care of your slave, kid.”
This was said to Luo En. Luo En, who was only slightly shorter than the armored knight, just showed a polite smile.
Then he led the little elf through the city gate tunnel, which was a full 12 meters long.
Even during wartime, the Royal Capital still showed its应有的 bustling atmosphere. Although it wasn’t as vibrant as the Elven Capital, the spacious stone-paved road gave the little elf a different experience.
“To be honest, I’ve never seen so many people in the Elven Capital.” Astraea said. There were many vendors at the city gate, constantly peddling various items to those entering. The little elf could even see an old man huddled in the shadow of the wall, with a pile of magic materials in front of him.
That was probably a mage? The little elf could sense the magic aura on the old man, but she didn’t know which mage had fallen to making a living by setting up a stall.
Astraea had completely forgotten how she had been busking (begging) in Port Tils.
“Sorry, Teacher Astraea. I might have to offend you next.”
Luo En pulled a rope from the bag on Lily’s back. The rope had a buckle attached to its end, and the buckle fit exactly with a certain part of the neck ring on Astraea’s neck.
Looking at this gift from the Adventurer’s Guild, the little elf couldn’t help but feel depressed. “Do we have to wear this?”
“The Royal Capital regulations require it. Bear with it, Teacher Astraea.” Luo En used this excuse. Although the Royal Capital did have such a regulation, Luo En knew that he might not be without the desire to see the little elf being led by him.
How despicable, Mr. Squire.
Astraea didn’t say anything else. She just docilely fastened the buckle herself.
Luo En held the little elf through the other object, but didn’t pull. He just went along with the little elf’s wishes. Although Astraea’s expression didn’t change, Luo En found that the sense of immorality in his heart was making him more excited.
‘Damn, am I really a pervert?’
Swallowing a mouthful of saliva, Luo En forcibly suppressed his desire. To divert attention, he thought of a very suitable idea.
“A, Astraea Teacher, can you teach me magic?”