"Bruno, since you've signed this contract, your family can be considered bound together with mine. I'll regard you as a nephew of my own house, and not treat you as an outsider..."
"Yes! Chief Steward Nuno, I have always regarded you as the father I revere! I was born the illegitimate son of a noble, and my father died early... If you do not disdain me, I am willing to kneel and call you godfather!..."
"Haaha, truly the Lord's blessing! To think that at my age, I would gain a godson..."
"Ah! Godfather, Godfather Nuno!..."
"Good! Good! My godson..."
Once the contract for five thousand Ducats was signed, the relationship between Bruno and Chief Steward Nuno instantly grew much closer. And that cry of "godfather" and "godson" also meant that, on top of money, power, and interest, another layer of worldly moral lubrication had been added between them.
And so, when Chief Steward Nuno looked at Bruno again, the smile on his face became much more warm and genuine. Bruno, too, wore a smile, serving him with even more devotion and effort than he would his own father. After all, the knightly father who had abandoned him could not have made him the commander in charge of an exploration fleet, and even less could he have made him an honored baron!
"Bruno, to be honest, with your commoner birth, no matter how much seafaring experience you had, it would have been impossible for you to break through that door and become a baron..."
"And if you had come back two months late and missed the second Atlantic Ocean voyage of exploration... then even I would have been powerless, unable to give you another push through the doorway to hereditary barony..."
Chief Steward Nuno's tone was leisurely as he slowly described