The Hero Becomes the Duke’s Eldest Son

Translator: Marctempest
Editor: Rynfinity

Chapter 60

The High Priest Kertel finally understood why Aden was laughing.

Aden took out Baalzebul and pierced a root of the spiritual herb.

Aden absorbed the mana of the spiritual herb using Baalzebul’s Power of Gluttony.

The spiritual herb, drained of its essence, shriveled up.

The essence absorbed by Baalzebul’s Power of Gluttony was transferred directly to Aden’s body.

This was because Aden was Baalzebul’s contractor.

Baalzebul could only absorb the essence of living or freshly dead beings.

Hence, Life Vessels or elixirs had to be consumed orally, but it was wiser to absorb fresh, living spiritual herbs through Baalzebul.

“Prince Remes? That is…”

“It’s an artifact.”

Aden answered simply and repeated his actions.

The High Priest face showed surprise.

An artifact that absorbed the essence of living beings? This was the first time the High Priest had heard of such a thing.

Aden continued to absorb every spiritual herb around him.

The speed at which Aden absorbed the spiritual herbs increased.

“Hey, Prince Remes…”

Poke.

-He devoured the essence.

“Isn’t that a bit much…?”

Poke, poke.

Another poke.

-He devoured the essence.

“Wait a moment! Let’s talk…”

Poke, poke, poke, poke!

He continued to poke and absorb the essence repeatedly.

-He devoured the essence.

“No…”

As time passed, the High Priest’s expression turned from curiosity to confusion, and then to shock, before finally becoming pale.

Half of the field of spiritual herbs was now mowed down.

“Please, stop! Prince Aden! Stop!”

Unable to watch any longer, the High Priest urgently called out to Aden, trying to stop him.

“Absorbing this much spiritual medicine at once will be…”

“No problem.”

Aden was someone who had controlled the mana of dragons in the world before his regression.

Even if he absorbed all the mana of the spiritual herbs here, it wouldn’t be too much for him.

“Well, be that as it may, isn’t this a bit excessive…”

“It’s fine.”

However, the High Priest was not fine.

Seeing the barren field, Curse asked Aden uneasily.

-Dragon Slayer, isn’t this a bit much? The old man’s face has gone pale.

“Hey, think from my perspective for a moment.”

Baalzebul had the Power of Gluttony, which allowed unlimited absorption of spiritual herbs.

And Aden had the ability to control the absorbed mana.

Then, this field of spiritual herbs appeared before him.

“It’s natural to want to take advantage of it.”

-You should have been born a Talos. Are you even human?

“Then why weren’t you born as a human? Are you really a Talos?”

-…

Curse was at a loss for words at Aden’s shamelessness.

Aden smiled at the High Priest.

“Didn’t you promise that I could eat as much as I wanted?”

The High Priest flinched at Aden’s words.

“I don’t think you’d break a promise made in the name of God, right?”

The High Priest’s face turned pale as if in despair.

* * *

Aden left about one-tenth of the spiritual herbs behind. He had a minimum amount of conscience, and some seeds needed to remain for the field to recover.

-So your conscience is only ten percent, Dragon Slayer.

Aden ignored Curse’s sarcasm.

He sat down and began to settle the accumulated mana into his mana core.

-He digested the mana of many spiritual herbs.

-The mana of the spiritual herbs is subordinated to the mana core.

The mana core, which had always felt insufficient, was now filled to the brim.

-The level of mana is advancing.

-Current level: Highest Grade Sword Aura

Breaking through the intermediate barrier, he reached the level of highest grade Sword Aura.

Aden lifted Baalzebul and injected mana into it.

Whoosh!

The light of destruction, which was initially formless, blazed like a blue flame on the sword.

The flame-like Sword Aura condensed and wrapped around the sword like a bundle of threads.

This was proof that he had reached the semi-master level, known as Aura Threads.

He had finally succeeded in accumulating the mana needed for the semi-master level.

Seeing Aden create Aura Threads, Kertel smiled.

“You have successfully reached the wall. Congratulations, Prince.”

“Thank you, High Priest Kertel.”

The High Priest looked regretfully at the now-barren interior of the cave, but he sincerely congratulated Aden on his growth.

He was a rare magnanimous man.

‘Well, it’s because of such a magnanimous man that I was able to eat so freely.’

-So that’s what it was… You really are something else…

‘Hey, what’s wrong with it… Oh?’

-What?

As Aden was mentally sparring with Curse, he paused.

‘Hey, you… can you hear my thoughts?’

-…It seems that now, even without speaking, we can sense each other’s intentions.

Curse had mentioned before that as Aden grew, their ability to communicate would also improve.

Upon inspection, the Demon Stone had grown a bit larger.

It seemed that now, having reached the semi-master level, they could communicate just through thoughts.

‘Damn, that’s unpleasant.’

-Dragon Slayer, it would be troublesome if you keep thinking like that.

Fortunately, they needed to have the intention to ‘talk’ to each other for this to happen.

Curse couldn’t read his thoughts unless Aden intended to communicate with him.

So there was no need to worry about important inner thoughts being exposed.

Just as Aden was about to leave, he suddenly stopped.

Seeing this, the High Priest was puzzled.

“Huh? What is it, Prince?”

“Just a moment.”

Aden sensed something.

A faint, strange energy was detected by his amplified senses.

“Here.”

The energy was emanating from a specific part of the cave floor.

It seemed that it had been hidden by the dense energy of the spiritual herbs before.

Aden frowned.

‘What is it?’

Why was such energy underground?

What was it that disturbed his senses despite being faint?

To solve the mystery, Aden dug into the ground.

He uncovered something hidden below.

“What’s this?”

There was a stone box surrounded by a formation inscribed with unfamiliar characters.

“Do you know what this is?”

“…This is my first time seeing it. Why is something like this here…?”

The High Priest seemed just as bewildered by the stone box’s existence.

-Hmm, this is a seal formation using a different system from the Western Continent. It’s neither a spirit language nor an underground world language. Perhaps it’s something buried by their ancestors. It won’t open with ordinary means. Hmm, I don’t know what’s inside, but I’m intrigued.

Aden felt the same way.

“High Priest Kertel, excuse me for a moment.”

Aden drew Baalzebul and created Aura Threads.

‘It won’t open with ordinary means…’

Then it should open with something extraordinary.

Aden accelerated the rotation of the Aura Threads.

The rotating Aura Threads accelerated more and more.

Aden extracted the Aura Threads quickly and sharply.

‘Spearmanship Knight Dayer Sias.’

Recalling the fierce thrust that had once pierced through the body of Leonberger…

“Haaah!”

He struck the stone box, inscribed with the formation, with a powerful thrust.

Boom!

An intense flash and shock burst forth from the contact point.

The dust rose and then settled back down.

As the dust settled, the shattered stone box was revealed.

Aden couldn’t help but wonder genuinely.

“What’s this?”

Inside the stone box lay an old book and a single black egg.

* * *

Returning to his room from the altar, Aden looked at the two items he held.

In his hands were the black egg and the book from the stone box.

He had asked the High Priest and kept them.

The strange energy Aden felt came from the egg.

The egg was about the size of an ostrich egg.

“What kind of egg is this?”

Through his senses, he could tell that the egg was alive.

It was no ordinary egg.

‘No matter how much impact it takes, it doesn’t break.’

It was so hard that he tried cutting it with an Aura Thread as a test.

But the egg didn’t have a single scratch.

Aden now turned his attention to the old book.

He opened the book.

It was filled with unknown characters.

Curse spoke up upon seeing the characters.

-Hmm, this is the language of the fairies.

“The fairies?”

-Yes. It seems to be a language used a long time ago.

“Can you read it?”

-No. The fairy language has many dialects. Only the fairies themselves can interpret this.

“Useless.”

Fairies…

Aden suddenly thought of the Fairy Silk stored in his Subspace Pouch.

“The Sacred Fire Order might have had some interaction with the fairies in the past.”

It might explain why the top-grade elixir ingredients included the tears of the wood fairies.

Aden pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket.

It was the location of the Ents’ habitat, which he had bought from the spirit merchant.

“I was planning to visit there soon anyway.”

Thanks to consuming all the spiritual herbs, his mana had risen to the semi-master level, akin to the limit of an ordinary human.

However, breaking through to the Sword Master level required far more mana than he had absorbed so far.

Curse seemed incredulous at Aden’s thoughts.

-To me, the amount you’ve consumed already is staggering.

“That’s not nearly enough.”

Becoming a Sword Master required consistent physical training, profound spiritual insights,

and a vast amount of accumulated mana.

These three elements had to be balanced.

Aden had already attained the spiritual insight of a Sword Master, so he only needed to accumulate enough mana.

“To do that, I need to get the Ents’ tears.”

Aden read out the location of the Ents’ village written on the paper.

“Near Sedus County, in the Forest of Death…”

Sedus.

By coincidence, it was a name he kept encountering.

* * *

A few days later, Duke Fried Remes of the Remes Duchy read Sir Spele’s report, who had returned with the knight order, and chuckled in disbelief.

“You expect me to believe this?”

“I apologize.”

Sir Spele bowed his head, gauging the duke’s reaction.

The duke reread the list of events in the document several times.

It was as if he was questioning his own eyes.

But the contents of the report remained unchanged.

One day, the alchemist his son had brought turned out to be a member of the Sacred Fire Order’s Seven Star Council, and that person’s daughter was the saintess of the order.

His son had made significant contributions by identifying heretics within the Sacred Fire Order and saving the order from a crisis.

And there was even a certificate requesting to establish a branch of the order in the Remes territory.

All these incidents were so shocking that it made him seriously wonder if he had mistaken someone else for his son, Aden.

But there was an even more pressing issue.

With a somewhat stern expression, he glared at Sir Spele.

“Did you say my son is going to Sedus territory? With only one escort?”

The most important issue was that his precious son was traveling with just one knight for protection.

“I am sorry, lord.”

Aden had ordered the knights of Remes to escort the envoys from the order back to Remes territory.

-You all go back first. I have business in Sedus territory.

However, Aden had decided to move separately and head to the northeastern frontier.

The knights tried desperately to dissuade him.

They couldn’t let the son of their lord travel alone.

Otherwise, they knew they would be severely reprimanded by Duke Fried later.

But Aden’s response was…

-Any objections? If you have any, try to defeat me. You can even attack me together. If any of you win, I’ll listen to you.

Despite the knights’ pleas, Aden remained resolute.

Left with no choice, the knights of Remes all attacked Aden.

And five minutes later, the knights of Remes were all sprawled on the ground.