First Meeting with Count Connor
Quint Will was momentarily at a loss for words.
Fortunately, his years of keeping a low profile in the ducal castle allowed him to quickly change his expression.
He soon composed himself and looked at Lister calmly.
The appreciation he had shown as a superior was gone from his eyes, replaced by an apparent desire to teach Lister a lesson.
In the end, though, he chose not to act. He turned and climbed over the wall to leave.
On the day of the duel.
People throughout the Duchy of Will's main city, in both the inner and outer districts, had turned their attention to the duel.
Two hours before the duel, spectators had already packed the area around the city's only dueling platform.
Many commoner families from the outer city came to watch, bringing wine and food as though attending a festival.
It wasn't that they particularly hated either side. In fact, the commoners present despised all nobles.
They envied and resented the city's noble children, whose lives were completely different from theirs from the moment they were born.
Now that there was a duel, they naturally hoped both sides would fight as viciously as possible. They didn't care who died!
The old butler, Anke, had been waiting worriedly outside Lister's bedroom since early that morning.
When Lister finally emerged, dressed and ready, Anke hurriedly told him what he had heard in the city.
"My lord, you're finally out. The dueling platform is surrounded by people now. Everyone in the city is looking forward to your duel with Quint."
"I don't know who spread the news, but this duel seems even more of an occasion than the one the duke himself fought in twenty years ago."
Lister raised an eyebrow and shook his head.
The old butler Anke didn't know the full picture of the duchy's factions, nor did he know what difficulties the Merick Family was facing.
Take this duel, for example. It had clearly started between nobles over a woman.
Such things had happened before, of course, but they had never drawn this much attention!
Quite a few young nobles might have attended, but commoners would never have heard about it.
In the Duchy of Will, and even throughout the Kingdom of Lucian, nobles and commoners were practically two parallel lines that never intersected.
The things they cared about and the pressures they faced in making a living were entirely different.
Only if a commoner obtained an inheritance and became a professional would a new path open up for their future.
Yet today, even all the people in the city were paying attention to this affair.
It was clearly Duke Will II's doing. He wanted to humiliate the Merick Family in public.
He wanted to slap the city's seven great professional families in the face, starting with the long-declining Merick Family.
"Is lunch ready? I'll eat first."
Lister wasn't worried about the afternoon's duel for the moment. Given Quint's current strength, the gap between them was considerable.
What he needed to think more about was what would happen after the duel!
Inside Viscount Anbeite's castle, Anna had long since packed her bags.
She was now in the studio, making the final arrangements with Ruisi.
"My father has already gone to the dueling arena. A little later, one of my family's caravans will set out to trade in Lias Province to the south."
"We'll follow the caravan out of the city when the time comes."
"Aren't we eloping? We're leaving with a caravan?"
Ruisi was even more nervous today than he had been over the past few days. He rubbed his hands together as he spoke, his palms sweating constantly.
"Do you have enough gold coins for us to live on?"
Ruisi shook his head. Although his skill at painting allowed him to get by fairly well in the city, he was a long way from wealthy.
Let alone being able to support a woman from a noble family like Anna.
"Since you don't, then listen to me. We'll leave with the caravan."
"Don't worry. The goods this caravan is transporting aren't very valuable, and it was only hastily assembled and hired by my family within the past week."
"Once we join the caravan, you'll be called Irus, and I'll be Lina."
Anna had already thought through everything that would happen after they left the city, including their life after eloping.
She had taken several valuable items from the Ambet Family's underground vault and would have the caravan transport them, then find a way to sell them once they reached their destination.
She wasn't a professional, and the value of those items alone was enough to keep her fed and clothed without worry for several lifetimes.
The one thing she didn't know was that the leader of this caravan was actually someone Quint had arranged for.
Half an hour remained before the duel began.
Lister finally squeezed his way into the dueling arena and reached the second-floor waiting area.
He had long since put Anna out of his mind and waited quietly for the duel to begin.
"Lister?"
An elderly voice suddenly came from behind him.
A handsome old man with pure white hair, dressed in an elegant blue formal outfit and looking every bit the gentleman, approached him.
Several young and middle-aged men and women, all with the same pure white hair, followed behind him, looking Lister over curiously.
"You've changed a great deal since your father Mel passed away!"
The handsome old man looked him up and down as though he were a nephew.
Lister looked the man over in turn. He was sure that the man had to be from one of the city's seven great professional inheritance families.
Only when he saw the green branch brooch on the handsome old man's chest did Lister confirm his identity. He was from the Conner Family, the foremost of the seven great professional inheritance families.
Going by his impression, this man was probably the current head of the Conner Family, Count Liad Connor.
Lister couldn't resist using Detection on him.
[Comparing enemy and own strength... detection results obtained...] [Level: Lv39] [Class: Nature's Envoy (mage type)] [Health: 1909/1909] [Stamina: ???] [Attributes: ???, ???, ...] [Skills: ???, (insufficient data obtained through detection) ???] [Overall rating: C] [Warning: This enemy is extremely dangerous. Keeping your distance is advised.]
Good grief. He really was Count Connor, the foremost of the city's seven great professionals.
Lister wasn't surprised by his level. NPC levels in the second act's expansion were all capped below level 40.
So whether in the Kingdom of Lucian or the Duchy of Will, as long as the third act's expansion hadn't begun,
the highest level any character he could encounter could reach was level 40.
What Lister hadn't expected was the C-grade combat power indicated by the overall rating.
That meant the man's four core attributes had definitely already reached the barrier, and one of his advanced skills was at a sufficiently high level.
As for him having received a C-grade rating because of a passive skill, Lister thought that unlikely. In the earlier acts, he really had never encountered an NPC or monster that maxed out a passive skill early.
And in terms of actual combat power gains in the early stages, maxing out a passive skill was slightly less effective than maxing out an advanced skill.
With a maxed-out passive skill, the higher one's level, the stronger the cumulative effect.
Taking advantage of the pause, Lister used Detection on the younger members of the family behind the handsome old man.
[Level: Lv27] [Class: Nature's Envoy (mage type)] [Health: 1209/1209] [Stamina: 417/417] [Attributes: Strength: 13, Stamina: 18, Intelligence: 27, Agility: 19] [Skills: Verdant Growth (C-grade) Lv3: Causes magic vines to grow from the ground and bind enemies (the binding effect and duration depend on the enemy's strength), Earth and Stone Armor (E-grade) Lv25: Uses the earth as armor to defend oneself, Mysteries of Nature (C-grade) Lv4: Increases affinity with nature magic by 30% for a period of time] [Overall rating: D]
The strongest of them, a middle-aged man, was only level 27. Lister checked every one of them and found no passive skills among the Conner Family members.
It looked as though, for now, only the Will Family had passive skills.