Asgar Kingdom, in a small city in the north.
The small city called Ace had once been an unremarkable town. Then, more than a decade ago, a mountain of gold was discovered nearby, and it slowly grew into a city.
Even so, compared with a major city, it was little more than a larger village.
Its streets turned filthy and muddy whenever it rained. Mining had stripped the hills of vegetation, so whenever the wind blew, dust filled the sky.
But it was a paradise for adventurers dreaming of riches. They gathered from across the country and even from abroad, hoping to find a gold mine, change their fortunes, reach the pinnacle of life, and marry a beautiful noblewoman.
Alongside them were countless miners who lived by the strength of their backs.
They were the poorest serfs or ruined farmers who had lost their land, forced by necessity into dangerous mines.
Early that morning, sometime after ten, the sky was still dark.
Suddenly, in a mansion in the city, a manservant rushed upstairs in a panic and pounded on the bedroom door of his master, Viscount Phyllis.
"Who is it?" came an old, weary man's voice from within.
In the lavish bedroom, the nearly fifty-year-old viscount stirred on his enormous solid-wood bed and asked irritably, still groggy and foul-tempered at being woken.
If this isn't important, I'll break that bastard's legs.
Though he was a Formal-Rank Transcendent, Viscount Phyllis was no longer young. He looked only fifty, but in truth he was nearly a hundred.
And last night, taking on two at once had left him thoroughly exhausted.
Yet when he looked at the two beautiful young women still sleeping soundly on either side of him, pride welled up. I've still got it! He had used a little secret medicine,