Marquis Yuke's question left all the great nobles present troubled.
"Without settled adventurers to replenish us, grassroots talent will grow scarce," said one count bitterly. "But... what terms can we use to attract adventurers?"
"Fiefs?" another count asked.
"Impossible!" yet another count immediately rejected the idea. "Granting fiefs is easy; taking them back is hard. Settled adventurers are often useful for only one or two generations. Most of their descendants show nothing outstanding from the third generation onward. How can we grant them fiefs?"
"Exactly. It might be acceptable for high-level adventurers, but mid-level adventurers simply aren't worth granting fiefs to."
"But without fiefs, the terms we can offer aren't any better than the Merchant Faction's. We can't possibly give every mid-level adventurer the status of prospective knight. As for low-level adventurers, we may not even be able to give them official status... By comparison, the Merchant Faction can at least give them hope of a family legacy."
"What damned family legacy! Without fiefs, what kind of family is that? It's a complete joke!"
"But those mid- and low-level adventurers won't see it that way. To them, having a stable livelihood and a family to pass down means their lives are settled."
"Damn it! Can't these people have a little more ambition?"
"The more ambitious ones have probably gone to the Northwest Republic."
"...That country is terrible!"
After a torrent of voices condemning the matter from every angle, they still failed to reach any good conclusion or come up with any seemingly effective solution.
At the root of it, the nobles' power and status simply held very little restraining force over adventurers.
Of course, adventurers respected noble authority as well, but they were free. Even if relations soured, at worst they could pat their backsides and leave. Could the nobles