As soon as he crossed the entrance threshold, a large, beautiful dragon hatchling leapt into his arms, knocking Daniel onto his backside.
"Fino? You finally woke up?" Daniel smiled as he saw that his dragon hatchling was finally awake.
"Change back into your transformed form," he quickly ordered after seeing it return to its dragon form.
Fino grumbled a little at his father’s serious tone but then turned back into a beautiful bird. It was obvious he wasn’t happy with this form at all—how could he show his dignity and majesty in such a weak form?
But Daniel completely ignored his feelings, stood up, closed the door behind him, and carefully examined him while still holding him in his arms.
This dragon hatchling had been asleep for almost three days. At first, Daniel had been a little worried, but when he noticed that Fino’s body seemed to be growing larger during his sleep, he realized it was probably some kind of growth stage or something similar.
And he was right. Fino had grown to three times his original size. His aura and presence had become much stronger, almost like an adult dragon.
Most importantly, his power level—this dragon hatchling had reached peak rank A!
"This is cheating. How does nature even allow you dragons to exist?" Daniel truly felt jealous. He had to bust his ass to increase his rank.
But this dragon? He just got stronger by sleeping. What kind of justice was that? With this kind of cheat, it was no wonder dragons were the strongest race in the world.
Daniel sighed. At least he was the father of one of these monsters. Having one was better than having none.
Fino perched on his shoulder as Daniel headed toward the hall. No one was there. He released his spiritual sense and noticed that Ilaris was still sleeping in her room.
"Strange, she never sleeps this long," he murmured to himself.
"She’s probably just tired." Then he noticed the palace doors had been opened. Extending his spiritual sense, he realized Andreas had returned.
"You’re finally back?" Daniel asked with a smile as he walked toward him.
"Yeah, it was an important meeting—but boring." Andreas sighed and sat down in a chair.
"Did Selera finish her work as well?"
"Yeah, she should’ve already returned to her palace by now. I told her you wanted to see her."
"Good. So, what was the meeting about?" Daniel asked curiously. From Andreas’ expression, he could tell that while the meeting had been boring, it was also extremely important.
"Remember that mission I told you about? This meeting was about that mission. Our mission is an assassination—assassinating the son of one of the biggest leaders of the Underworld." Andreas’ expression suddenly turned serious.
"Assassinate the son of one of the Underworld leaders? That doesn’t sound simple," Daniel frowned. He was exactly in the kind of position he didn’t like.
Still, it wasn’t too much of a problem. This time, even if something happened, he could always throw all the blame onto the Lionheart family.
"Yeah. They’ll give me the detailed information tomorrow, and we’ll be dispatched right after that. Just you and me," Andreas nodded.
"No problem. What about Lioran? Does he have a mission as well?" Daniel asked. To him, this mission wasn’t the real issue. Thɪs chapter is updated by Novᴇl_Fire(.)net
The biggest obstacle in front of Andreas was Lioran. Until Lioran was removed from the path, his friend would never be able to claim inheritance.
"Seems like he’s been given a mission too, but I don’t know the details."
Daniel frowned and stayed silent for a moment. Unfortunately, his idea of sabotaging Lioran’s mission had to be set aside.
Although it didn’t really have much of an effect, it was more like a shot in the dark. With the situation as it was, he still had to go to the Mage Tower, though before that he had to deal with this assassination.
In fact, to carry out the assassination he could use his Fallen, and he didn’t even need to get directly involved himself. That way, he wouldn’t have to worry about his identity being exposed.
He set Fino down from his shoulder and began petting him. The little one didn’t mind at all—in fact, he even started acting spoiled.
Andreas burst into laughter at the sight. Now he wanted a pet too, but sadly, he didn’t have the time to raise one.
"By the way, I managed to find some information about that girl you mentioned."
"About Eva? That was quicker than I expected." Daniel looked at him with surprise.
"That’s because she’s more well-known than you thought. In fact, it seems she’s not even trying to hide her identity anymore," Andreas explained.
"Interesting. Did she join a faction or become someone’s disciple?" That was the only possibility Daniel could think of.
As long as she joined a guild or an organization on the same level or stronger than the Church of Destiny, then naturally he wouldn’t need to worry about her life anymore.
The same applied to becoming the disciple of a powerful existence. Still, the first possibility seemed more logical and likely to him.
After all, how many individuals existed who could stand alone against the entire Church, or not even fear it? Such existences were extremely rare.
But to his surprise, it was actually the second option that had happened.
"The second one. It seems that girl, Eva, became the disciple of the Mad Empress. Because of that, the Church no longer dared to pursue her or try to assassinate her."
"Now she’s not even hiding her identity anymore. The whole world knows that the last descendant of the Irenwalds is still alive, and more importantly, that she became the disciple of the Mad Empress."
"So now, no one dares to harm her or go after her for any reason."
"So she became a disciple. But who exactly is the Mad Empress?" Daniel asked curiously. He had never heard of such an existence before.
Yet strangely enough, every time he thought about that name, the image of the woman he had seen in Broken Valley appeared in his mind—as well as that letter he had found in Kaelos’ pocket after his death.