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Evan D. Sherden. Enters the Dungeon (1)
“Evan you are free of all invitations of engagements.”
“Thank you, Father! I was counting on you!”
After the merry birthday party, Evan had ran straight to the Marquis to inquire. Tears of joy came to his eyes when he heard the Marquis say those words.
Serena had been increasingly daring to form a bond with Evan, and Arisha had said that their engagement seemed fun to her. Therefore, Evan was really excited to confirm this news to both of them!
“As we all expected, the King isn’t foolish enough to give the Dungeon Knights Commander the hand of her daughter, the Princess. So I was able to resist their proposal with some reasoning and they agreed.”
“In other words, I don’t have to worry about getting engaged at all, right?”
At Evan’s words, the Marquis fell into a strange silence, but then he replied after coughing and adjusting himself.
“…Yes, maybe.”
“Just before you answered me, the silence was strangely long, father? Is everything okay?”
“Your Majesty said he would try to stop the Princess as much as possible.”
Evan wasn’t sure if he had heard correctly the statement that the King of a country wasn’t able to control his own daughter!
“But you can’t give the hand of the Princess to the Commander of the Dungeon Knights!”
“I can’t help you, Evan, if she decides to take matters in her own hands. So, Evan, the important thing is that… In the future, you should be on your guard.”
“What is that even supposed to mean, father?!”
“Don’t you understand, my precious child?”
And then Evan realized. If Princess ever decided to sneak up to Evan’s bedroom one night…
Of course, both of them were still very young, but it meant that Evan had to be careful on his part. He began to murmur in a cold sweat.
“There is no way the Princess would resort to such actions. Maybe after some time, her attitude will change for the better.”
“For your sake, I hope so. So this was the good news.”
“What!? This was good news just now!?”
“Evan let me tell you something. The people of the Pellati family are famous for being stubborn as a donkey and this trait has passed from generation to generation, regardless of their genders.”
“It seems that not only the Pelatti family, but everyone around me are stubborn as a mule…”
The Marquis continued with a sad expression as he saw Evan, who looked like he had lost all hope, and his eyes had become lifeless.
“You have firmly planted your roots in the hearts of Count Pellati and her daughter. It seemed like he himself didn’t want to go by his own proposal. Anyhow, you do know that there are cases where the Dungeon Knight Commander lends his power and his men to the crisis of other dungeons. Rather, it will be good that the Dungeon Knight Commander maintains a steady connection with other Dungeon Knight Commanders to receive help in tragic conditions.”
Evan remembered now. In Yo-Ma Great War 3 and 4, there was a scenario in which the Dungeon Knights in charge of other dungeons assisted each other in any crisis! At that time, Evan had thought it was just a bit of nice programming, which made NPCs support each other. He had never expected it to become a death trap for him!
“When I said that I wanted to leave your marriage to your own choice, Count Pellati agreed with me.”
“Oh!?”
“The obvious conclusion is that he wants you two to get to know each other first.”
“Of course…”
Evan’s turned pale. Now he felt like he finally understood what Arisha had wanted to say.
As he kept thinking, the Marquis continued.
“First of all, he said he wants to join his daughter as a reserve member of our Dungeon Knights squad. In this way you both will be together with each other and if all goes well, she’ll become a formal member… You get the whole idea right, right?”
“…Father.”
The Count had come up with one of the oldest tricks in the books!
“I couldn’t deny any more than this, Evan. The dungeons are still very dangerous, and they cannot be conquered easily. Moreover, he praised the preliminary unit that you had shown off and the beautiful dresses of the children.”
“Well, that step had to be taken.”
Showing off the existence of the preliminary members of the Dungeon Knights squad was a necessary procedure that had to be taken, both to make people look forward to the future and to inspire confidence in them.
Nevertheless, Evan now seemed to regret that too.
“I don’t know what to say son, but you resemble your mother greatly in all of your facial features. If only you would’ve resembled me more, you wouldn’t need to suffer at the hands of women so much.”
“These are question even I don’t know the answers to, father. I think my father is also very handsome, so…”
The Marquis patted Evan on the back and soothed him. After a few moments, he took a deep breath and asked him.
“Why are you so scared of women so much Evan? I must listen to the reason right now.”
“That’s because…”
“Because?”
Of course, there was a particular reason to be scared of Serena and Arisha, but perhaps even explaining it would not be enough to satisfy the Marquis.
Therefore, Evan decided to discuss the more fundamental reason with him and tried to explain why he, Evan D. Sherden, had to be careful of women around him.
“It’s because I’m scared to trust outsiders too much which can later prove to be fatal for any of us, father.”
When the Marquis heard that, he was silent for a moment. It was a deeper reason than he had expected. At least the Marquis was relieved that his son wasn’t suffering from some kind of phobia of women, but … He still couldn’t figure it out.
“Would you repeat that, son?”
“I’m scared because I feel like I’m going to get stabbed by a person closer to me whom I wasn’t able to judge correctly at the time.”
Other reasons included mainly being poisoned, stabbed, cursed, or hit by magic spells!
However, the Marquis did not even grasp the fact that the wound that Evan was talking about wasn’t a physical one.
“I see, Evan. Was that the reason because of which you were scared of women?”
“Do I look stupid to you, father?”
“No my son. You’re not stupid at all. And certainly not like a child, I see. But you shouldn’t avoid getting close to people just because you’re scared of them.”
The Marquis remembered the faces of the people whom Evan was close to and realized that he was not avoiding everyone unconditionally.
However, it had to be noted that most of them were closely related to the Marquis or some other person who he wasn’t in deep contact with. In contrast, even though they were closer like a family, Evan dared to use Shine and Belois as his “servants”.
Surprisingly, this child had already set up a way to get along with other people regardless.
‘However, he has ambitiously set standards infinitely high, so they will soon be shattered. If he gets a little mature and go through everything himself, he will come to realize it. Human relationships, of course, need love.’
To the Marquis, Evan seemed to be a child who had already decided how to get along with people, but living in this world and getting involved with others wasn’t as simple as he thought.
‘The day will come when this child will soon realize his failure. However, due to that he will be able to grow further. He will be loved by more people. He will be able to create feelings for more people in his heart.’
“I know well, Evan. I respect your thoughts.”
“Father… !”
“This is one of the things in life that you have to experience on your own. If you fail, accept the results as they are. And think again. About me and about the other people. Do you understand?”
Evan thought the Marquis had misunderstood something… But for now, he decided to nod his head.
“Yes, father! I understand!”
“That’s the spirit, my wonderful son. Congratulations again on turning 12.”
The two people who had thought differently smiled brightly at each other. They also had the same feelings of caring for each other, but because of their ideologies, the relationships were a lot complicated.
Evan washed and laid down on the bed in his room. Was it around 2 am? He had enjoyed the party till late at night, chatted with many people, and had finally had a consultation with the Marquis.
“Tomorrow is the day we will finally enter the dungeon… I really have to get some sleep before it’s too late.”
Evan yawned. As he was going to sleep, he was still popping slimes with both hands. As much as he couldn’t pop slime today, he was thinking of making up for it right before he went to bed.
“What the…!?”
At that moment, the Miraseul necklace began to emit dazzling light. Of course, the growth of the necklace was a frequent occurrence, but this time something was different.
It was exactly like it had been a year ago! The same thing happened when the necklace had evolved in front of the Princess’s eyes, and it had become possible for her to summon fire slimes!
[Gyu-woo-woo-woo!]
Then Evan heard a strange noise. He felt unbearably anxious. Shortly thereafter, the door to his room opened up, and someone entered.
“Evan Oppa called me!”
“I didn’t call you!”
Standing there was Serena L. Silkline. In her pajamas! The Princess told her that she would be staying at the Marquis’s for a few days!
The guards and the maid who seemed to be serving the Princess stood there subconsciously, but the Princess steadfastly declared, “I have something to ask of Evan Oppa!” and closed the door while locking it.
What was she doing there?
‘I didn’t know the Princess would come into my bedroom the very night when I was warned to be on my guard!’
“I want to have a new child.”
“No! Calm down, Princess. I’m still too young and I have no such intentions yet!”
“Since there are only two of us present here, I think it’s okay to talk about it.”
“Did you really need to come at this hour to my room to create such a situation!?”
Serena tilted her head to the side.
“It’s not that urgent. Although, I want the child to be summoned soon.”
“Summoning a child?”
Serena points towards Evan. More precisely, she was pointing at the necklace that Evan was wearing.
The necklace had turned to normal after shining brightly for a while. A new blue jewel had appeared on it, which was glinting.
Only then did Evan escape from the panic and found reason. As he thought about it calmly, there was no way a Princess, who was only 11 years old, was going to come into his bedroom to make a pretense.
If Serena had come with innocent intentions, then Evan had no choice but to hear out what she had to say.
‘The only reason Serena will suddenly come to visit me in the middle of the night is….”
Her necklace was also shining.
The longer Evan thought about it, the clearer it got.
“Is there an elite slime who is communicating with the Princess this time?”
“That’s right. Ruby first heard her voice and informed me. So we came together.”
[Yes!]
Ruby cried proudly. Evan then sighed with relief.
He then grabbed the necklace.
“In the future, don’t do anything like that again.”
“I’m sorry?”
“In the future, you will not go into a man’s room without his permission.”
“Than, I’ll knock first and then come in. Aren’t you quite delicate for your age?”
“Yes, that’s right. But why isn’t Ray like that too?”
“Wow, you finally called me Ray! I am so happy!”
“You yourself told me to call you Ray when you said there would be only the two of us.”
Evan gave the summoned slime to Serena, who was jumping around joyously and reached out a hand. The slime this time was an ice slime. It was the slime of the opposite attribute from the previous one.
As the name suggested, it was a slime that exuded cold energy, and as the elite slime evolved, it could be expected to have specialized abilities just like Ruby.
“Then… I’ll summon some more!”
[Wow!]
The slime that was summoned this time was like Ruby because its skin was covered with keratin that sparkled like a jewel. But the color of its body was sky blue as blue flames shot from it.
The performance of this elite slime at the time of appearance was even better than Ruby, and as soon as it was summoned, it jumped high into the air, threw small ice crystals, and then rotated and landed gracefully, performing a very cute dance straight away.
Evan started summoning more as if he was not in danger at all, and Serena even advertised them as good friends of human beings.
“Thanks for telling me in advance.”
Ruby nodded proudly. Even though Evan had already decided not to question about the slime being summoned from the hook of the Miraseul necklace, he still did it anyway.
‘How can these guys communicate so clearly before they are even summoned!?’
“Wow, they’re cute! Evan Oppa, will you give me some too?”
She went ahead and picked up one of the new slimes.
“Wow, Evan, I really like it! It’s even better than an earthworm!”
Evan remained still with a feeling that was hard to describe.
Serena stretched out her hands to embrace the Elite Ice Slime and laughed happily.
“Thanks again Oppa. I’ll take care of Lucy from now on!”