"Alright, that’s great and all lady, but I’m not a High Tier Holy Knight. Get your eyes checked."

Grey came to a stop barely a meter away from the woman as her pupils constricted.

"Now, I’m gonna need you to move aside. Or we can fight. Choice is yours, really."

The lady guard didn’t seem to have the words anymore.

"Great."

Grey side-stepped her, patted the guard who drew his sword on the shoulder, then stepped into the city. He turned back and gave the wrapped baby a wink before vanishing.

He did notice someone watching him high on the city walls, but since the man didn’t say or do anything, Grey didn’t bother with it. If he had known that this man was Duke Valdi’s youngest acknowledged heir, he might have reacted very differently, though.

The lady guard had no choice but to notice, however. Especially after he flickered and appeared near her.

"Ah, Sir Apollo!"

She immediately fell to a knee. Was it proper etiquette to bow to a mere potential heir of a Dukedom like this? Absolutely not. But that wasn’t going to stop her from protecting her life in what ways she could.

"Get up." Apollo said coldly.

She hurried to oblige.

"What did you sense just now?" he asked.

The lady guard gulped, her hands shaking. "I’m not sure, I’m not sure. Originally I thought he was a High Tier Holy Knight, Sir Apollo. But when he got close, it felt like he was something beyond that. I believe he is a Paladin."

"A Paladin from outside of the Imperial Family?" Apollo asked as though questioning her judgment.

The lady guard’s shoulder shook. Had she made a mistake?

"I..."

"Speak your mind and don’t waste my time."

The lady guard’s back stiffened and she was forced to stand up straighter.

"It was murky, Sir Apollo. His presence felt weaker than any Paladin I’ve seen. I believe it may be because he doesn’t have the bloodline purity of the Imperial Family. But he was most definitely a Paladin. If my judgment is wrong, then it is more likely that he is a small step beyond a Perfect High Tier Knight. Though I am not sure what that would mean."

Apollo nodded slowly, looking toward where Grey had vanished.

The only Paladins aside from those of the Imperial Family were the Dukes and Marquises of the Empire. There were very rare instances in history of those outside of these few reaching that stage, but again... they were impossibly few and far between.

The problem was just as the lady guard said. It was a problem of bloodline. Only the Imperial Family had blood pure enough to produce a Paladin, and only the Dukes and Marquises were of high enough standing that they were granted some benefits of this bloodline as a reward for their loyalty. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

So his father’s target for him was a Paladin?

Apollo’s eyes narrowed.

This was an opportunity. If he could steal and distill Grey’s bloodline for himself, then when he got another chance to enter the trial realm during his Vanguard Trial, he would be able to shed his status as a High Tier Knight and become a Paladin himself ahead of schedule.

Did his father prepare this opportunity just for him?

But this was a delicate matter. It was a high crime to kill a Paladin without due process. Only a member of the Imperial Family could do that.

Luckily for Apollo... he had much better control over his women than his stupid younger brother Terran did.

However, as stupid as he felt his younger brother was, he was still his younger brother, and someone had the audacity to kill him.

There would be hell to pay for that. And before hell, he would bleed Grey dry.

Rather than going after Grey, Apollo left in another direction.

**

Grey was in too much of a rush to pay attention to so many things at once. The instant he got into the city, his mind was entirely focused on one thing: finding a place to trade in all his Vanguard Class items.

Well, the first thing he did was get into the city as quickly as he could, then swap on his Helm Frame as a mask to hide his features. Would it do all that great a job? Probably not, but he hadn’t had the time to really plan out every little detail.

Then he found a poor old man selling watermelons, picked him up by his shoulders, and made him tell him where the best place to sell items was.

Did he probably take a few years off the old man’s life?

Almost certainly.

But he couldn’t deny that it was effective. He was able to quickly lock in on where he needed to go. That was the good news, anyway.

The bad news was that when he got there, he found that the place had two entrances, the more convenient of the two he wasn’t able to enter, and the other of which he’d probably still get turned away from.

"Fuck me."

Grey stood with his hand in his hair. This time, though, he wasn’t distracted by the happiness of having it back. Instead, he was looking at two lines of people, wondering how worthwhile it would be to stir up a bit of commotion here.

The two lines weren’t divided into noble and non-noble here. They were apparently divided into mech technician and non-mech technician.

It seemed that those that came here were already noble by default, but there wasn’t exactly a better place to go.

The weaker places wouldn’t accept items as powerful as Vanguard, and the stronger places would all have strict requirements like this.

Grey’s eyes shifted to the mech technician line to see they were all wearing similar uniforms. The colors varied, but each had the very same badge on their lapel.

"Fuck it."

Grey ignored the gazes of derision he received and slipped into the mech technician line. He was going to force this one way or another.