Chapter 24: Tour of the South

  The next morning, Garfield and Hannah walked over to the Polonio’s manor.

  “Good morning. Is Yttria in today? It’s Garfield.”

  “Duke, we will check at once.”

  A few minutes later, Yttria came over to the gate.

  “Sir Garfield, this is a surprise. What did you need? Would you like to come in?”

  “Actually, I’m here to invite you for a tour of my domain, if you are interested. Assistant Duke and I are going to visit, just for the day.”

  “Oh, that sounds like a great idea, but why bring me along?”

  “I’m sure you’re busy between your knight training and everything else, but I thought you might appreciate a change of pace.”

  “Yes… I will be happy to join you, if you can give me a few minutes to get ready.”

  Shortly thereafter, the group returned to Garfield’s estate. They picked up Assistant Duke and teleported to Fork’s Crossing.

  Apparently, Viscount Frond was still around. He came running over.

  “Duke Garfield! I owe you one heck of an apology! My treatment of you the other day was unacceptable! If only word had arrived earlier, I would have immediately relinquished the city to you…”

  “It’s fine. I’m going to tour the domain, starting with this city. Hopefully, there won’t be a siege today.”

  “Hah! After what you did, I doubt there’ll be another attack any time soon. In fact, what DID you do?”

  “It was a while ago and I hardly remember at this point,” Garfield claimed with a straight face. “Something about the enemy generously surrendering. Anyway, do you have time to give me a tour of the city?”

  “Of course.” Frond turned to the rest of the group. “I’m Viscount Frond. I was the provisional Lord of Fork’s Crossing until Duke Garfield was selected as Lord of Rox."

  “Yttria Polonio.”

  “Hannah Foucault.”

  “…Assistant Duke.”

  “Wait, there were some surprising names in there…” Frond noted, somewhat alarmed.

  “Don’t worry about it! Let’s begin!” Garfield declared.

  Frond led them on a tour of the city. Garfield’s favorite part was the Adventurer’s Guild. Apparently, some of the adventurers Garfield met during the siege were confused as heck about what his deal was, then and now.

  “Um, Duke… Do you have an identical brother who is a Gold-ranked adventurer?”

  “Yes. But he’s also a Duke. It’s horribly confusing.”

  “I… see…” The adventurer decided to stop thinking.

  “Yttria, would it be wrong if we accepted a request right now?”

  “Honestly, it’s bad enough that you still want to accept requests in general, not that I’m complaining, but doing it in your very own domain where you are the Lord is just entirely unreasonable.”

  “Duke Garfield!” the Guild Master called out. “Please excuse me for my behavior last time we met. I had no idea who you were. I ask you not hold it against the Adventurer’s Guild.”

  Garfield wasn’t quite ready to let it go. “My favorite part was when you were talking about the orders you received from the Lord, and the whole time I’m thinking, ‘wait, I’m the Lord, what the heck!?’”

  The Guild Master just bowed his head in apology. The group left to tour other spots.

  “How is the ground immediately near the city holding out?” Garfield asked Frond. “It may have received water damage.”

  “We did see some evidence of that, but the damage was minimal.”

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  “Good. Has there been any communication to this domain, specifically, from our friends down south?”

  “Nothing. I can only begin to imagine what they’re going through right now.”

  “I’m tempted to go find out, but maybe I better not stick my nose where it doesn’t belong,” Garfield decided.

  “I’m sorry…?”

  “Let’s continue!”

  Overall, the city was well located to facilitate trade but was otherwise unremarkable. The Lord’s Mansion was also not very impressive when compared to what Garfield was already living in.

  With the tour of the city complete, Garfield prepared to teleport the group to the other towns within the domain. “Viscount, why don’t you stay here while the rest of us tour the surrounding towns?”

  “Y-Yes, by all means, please enjoy yourself. I plan to stay here for the next couple of days before returning to the capital.”

  The group teleported from town to town. It was actually pretty boring. Garfield thought it was at least worthwhile to say hello to the leaders of each town. At the recommendation of a few town leaders, the group also explored some natural wonders within the domain. They toured a large waterfall, a famously salty lake, a section of forest with remarkably tall trees, and a mountain named The Old Man because it kind of looks like an old man from one direction. It wasn’t that exciting of a trip for Garfield, but everyone with him loved it, probably because they could travel so quickly and see so many things, contrary to normal practice.

  Finally, they decided to walk a stretch of the national border, just for fun and to kill a bit more time. Coincidentally, they encountered a group of bandits, or smugglers, or robbers, or something like that. Garfield suspected this is why senior government officials normally travel with guards.

  “Hannah, we haven’t had much of a chance to test out your capabilities yet. Why don’t you take care of this?” No need to kill them.”

  “Okay!”

  As the group of villains approached, Hannah ran towards them at a speed that defied common sense. It’s not clear the men saw her coming. Even without magic, she quickly overpowered them. The first enemy flew away, spinning from a kick. The second flipped head over heels from a punch. After that, the remaining enemies were running in the opposite direction, but it didn’t matter. They each got taken down without providing any resistance.

  “That was… really impressive, actually,” said Garfield.

  Hannah came back over, stood next to Garfield, and smiled, telegraphing she was ready for a head pat. Garfield was being a bit dense, though.

  Hannah just grabbed his hand and lifted it up.

  “Oh.” Garfield willingly gave her what she wanted. Then, he noticed that one of the villains was a dog-man.

  “Could the two of you face the other way for a minute and conveniently forget anything you hear?”

  Assistant Duke immediately complied. Yttria frowned, but eventually complied as well. Clearly, her honest nature was getting in the way a bit, but Garfield still trusted her.

  “I wouldn’t do this to someone who didn’t volunteer or alternately try to kill us, but in this case, I think it’s okay. Do you want to try taking a bit of the dog-man’s blood?”

  Hannah didn’t seem particularly thrilled, but she agreed. All the men were unconscious, so there were no other witnesses. She positioned herself and sucked his blood, but only for a quick moment. Unlike when she consumed Kay’s blood, this time she seemed a bit dazed afterwards.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, but I do feel a bit different this time…”

  Garfield used his sensing magic on her. Her stat increase was small compared to the previous times. Her list of bloods now included dog-person. Her blood supply was slightly fuller. One other item caught Garfield’s attention. The word ‘transformation’ appeared, although there was no explanation. Garfield decided to wait until later to explore that.

  “I think it’s time to go home. Any objections?”

  The group agreed, so Garfield teleported them to his manor. He then teleported Yttria directly to her home. Hannah returned with Garfield to his room.

  “Do you feel like you have the ability to transform, now? Like, to change your appearance?”

  “Yes… now that you mention it. I think I might be able to control my body differently than before. Should I try it?”

  “I guess so. I’ll be here to help in case anything goes wrong. Stop if you encounter any problems.”

  “Okay.” Hannah concentrated, and then her hair color changed to dark brown. Then she changed her eyes from a subtle red to a deep blue. Garfield narrated the changes he was seeing to help her out.

  “That’s amazing!”

  “It’s a bit difficult because I haven’t done it before. I think I can do more…” Hannah then started growing larger, as if she was getting older all at once. After a few seconds, she looked fully grown, perhaps the same age as Yttria.

  “How do you feel after all that?”

  “That was a little difficult also. I think it’s easier the second time.”

  “Does that ability allow you to safely hide your fangs?”

  “Let me try. How is that?”

  “It worked. Try putting yourself back to normal.”

  Hannah’s clothing was somewhat flexible, fortunately, but it was still stretched to the limit. Garfield wasn’t entirely sure where to focus his eyes, honestly.

  “I think I like this form more but, okay.” Over the next several seconds, Hannah shrank back to her previous form, including the original color scheme and visible fangs.

  “Probably, you can hide your fangs whenever you want now, but you can’t suck blood until you put them back to normal,” Garfield postulated.

  Hannah nodded.

  “I’m going to need to make you some clothing in a bigger size now, aren’t I…”

  Hannah nodded.

  “I get the feeling Yttria’s not going to like this development…”

  Hannah nodded, to Garfield’s surprise.

  While Garfield lay in bed, he thought about Hannah’s evolution. Her combat strength aside, her ability to change her form at will was pretty damn impressive. If she drank more blood, how much more capable would she become? There were still a few more beast-people races they could easily encounter. Garfield’s own blood was a mystery, animal blood was worth a try, and heck, even the blood of Garfield’s summoned creatures could potentially help to power Hannah up. However, all of this experimentation carried some nontrivial risk.

  Most of all, Garfield wanted Hannah to be happy. It didn’t seem like she needed to be any more powerful to be happy. Garfield could just summon a really powerful creature whenever he needed one, anyway.