NOVEL NEXT Chapter 1753
After being properly dressed my Faeyna, I left the hotel with a rather large group of women. They were all wearing the finest dresses, and they were colored and marked with my emblem. I had wanted the girls to be able to wear whatever they wanted that looked nice, but the girls had decided on wearing matching outfits. It gave me the impression that they were bride's maids, but this type of livery was allegedly important.
In a country with ten lords vying for power, a houses' established color could decide whose side every attendant was on. While I saw the girls as my equals, they were ultimately my slaves and little more than servants in the eyes of Jespain. It could already be considered a surprise that they were letting me bring everyone. Even in Aberis, I could only usually come with a selected few while everyone else stayed behind.
I knew that Lydia, Miki, Celeste, Terra, and Shao might be formidable in a dungeon, but they truly had no place in the courts. Sapphire wasn't known for her manners. Carmine could at least manage with her training that bordered on knightly, and the same could be said about Bernice who was a lord and knight. Alysia was the only princess, but she was content not to get involved in such affairs. From the beginning, she had always rejected her place as a princess, preferring dungeon diving with a party over politics. Any other girl that might have been suited for the courts had been left in Chalm.
There were ten of us in all without Faeyna, the maids, or the lionesses, and not including Alysia. First came as my official guard, while the other girls were to be treated as mistresses, underlings, and servants. Such a retinue wasn't as large as was generally expected according to Cici's meticulous notes, as well as my limited experience with Aberis's politics. Anne and Mary each brought four paladins with them, and the Esmere procession still only consisted of the three of them.
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That ended up making it about twenty-three of us in all meeting in the lobby of the hotel. We were gathered into the horseless carriages which I had come to learn were called autocoach or just a coach for short. The coach drivers took us from our hotel through the city. The light was starting to diminish and various lighting had been turning on, giving the place a beauty similar to the cities of my world at night. Those who had never seen such a thing couldn't help but make comments of excitement as they looked at it all.
In the back of my mind, I could only think of how much mana this was all using. Even in my city, oil was still used over light stones. These were light stones. One could easily tell by the mana they gave off, as well as the speed they were lit and the lack of flickering light. To be able to have such a rich supply of light, I had to imagine that these stones were similarly dungeon-bound.
While many dungeons were dark and cavernous, it wasn't too difficult for them to create light, even without a light source. Some entire dungeons were completely lit without any indicator of a light source, and such a thing was just accepted. It was a feature, and while it used mana and made it easier for invaders, prompting most younger dungeons to avoid such a thing, larger dungeons like Dirage were known for the first floors being brightly lit and easy to explore for new coming dungeon divers, although it was also known that such a light could go out at a moment's notice if the dungeon chose to turn on you.
In that respect, creating light stones in the same way as the country's currency, things that could generate light as long as they were within a close range of the dungeon, would allow cities like this to maintain such comfort. Such a relationship felt a bit wrong though. Weren't they depending a bit too much on the dungeon? What if that dungeon one day decided to turn on them? Such a thing could be disastrous.