"...how did you know?"

"hmm?"

Mars still sat with his eyes closed but he knew it was the beastwoman Elsa that had asked him with her crystal clear voice

"...about my daggers"

"oh that... they are old right?"

"yes... they are about 10 years old"

"that's how i knew"

"...how?"

Mars took a deep breath before he began explaining

"first it's the smell of polished metal, while you could have been polis.h.i.+ng some silverware before I arrived the slight sound the 2 daggers make when they hit the lightly lose sheaths while you walk gave it away"

"...you sure have good ears... for a human youth"

Mars gave a sigh and s.h.i.+fted his hand to patting Victoria on the edge of her ears

"well I'm not exactly human"

"...what does that mean?"

"it means what that I'm not completely human"

Elsa remained silent, Mars didn't know if she belied him or not but he didn't care enough to open his eyes to cheek, nor to explain any further so for a time the only sound in the room was Victoria's purring and a few minutes later Mars's eyes snapped open

'here he comes'

Mars picked up Reimund's footsteps through the wall and a few moments later Elsa's ears also seemed to pick up the movement as they twitched slightly and went over and opened the door when Reimund was about to and gave a bow

"master, madam"

"oh thanks Elsa"

Reimund walked through the door followed by a mature lady that had flowing blond-yellow hair that reached her hips, and with cures in the right places Mars found himself staring a bit to long at her until he looked a her face and saw yellow eyes and a bright smile that reminded him of the sun and praised

"Reimund i thought you were going to get your wife, but this beautiful young lady can't possibly be form the same generation as you"

"oh my, Reimund I like him already"

Reimund gave a sigh and sat down, deciding to ignore his wife as he started his back and asked Mars while the old butler from earlier served the tea along with some small cookies

"so Mars can you tell me what happened in the forest?"

"sure..."

Mars stopped petting Victoria and put on a serious face

"I was on my way out of the forest, where I have been living most of my life by the way when I ran into a group of about 15 goblins witch I swiftly took care off, when I ran into you son"

of cause 'most of his life' was only 2 months but Mars felt no need to mention this as it would make the whole situation more complicated

"I see... you certainly look like someone that have lived far from civilization but the Mother forest huh... didn't the elvers trouble you?"

"yeah that is also the reason I left the forest, I had a run in with a squad of elvers a few days ago and decided to leave the forest before they hunted me and Victoria down"

lady Orbrage gave a sigh and looked at Mars with concern in her eyes

"that certainly most have been hard... do you have any idea where your parents are?"

"no, but my dad is long dead"

"I see..."

Mars felt a little touched by the lady but decided to move on with his story

"well anyway, your son showed up with 5 armed people he seemed to have hired for some sort of hunter test and commanded one of them to chase me away so he could claim the goblin corpses"

Reimund gave a sigh and began to rub his forehead while lady Orbrage narrowed her eyes and sent out a lightly concealed pressure

"that person then demanded I hand over all the magic cores and coins in my possession if I wanted to keep my life, which I of cause refused and then he attacked me"

"fortunately for me he was an armature with the sword so i quickly... took care off him, then the rest took up a formation to attack me but I made a preemptive strike and killed them with my fire magic and then i knocked out your son and dragged him to the gates were i turned him in to the guards"

Reimund gave another sigh and lady Orbrage remained silent but Mars noticed her hair was lightly flowing around like the wind was blowing it while small electric currents jumped between her hair, her eyes had also turned even colder

"...Reimund"

"I know Irene... I agree, Sebastian please make perpetration for sending Stephen off to the knight school in the capital"

"at once master"

the old butler gave a bow and walked out off the room and Irene seemed to clam down a bit as she gave a sweet smile to Mars

"thank you for telling us this... hopefully this will build some character on that useless son of mine..."

"no problem, but why don't you doubt what I say?"

Reimund gave a slightly defeated smile

"well because it matches with what we have heard of our son before... also I don't think a apostle would lie about something like this"

"oh right..."

Mars looked down and saw the necklace of the apostle he was wearing and mentally thanked Info for making his life way more simple while Irene spoke up

"so Mars, you have been living in the Mother forest, what was it like?"

"well... it was nice, I had my very own cave and all... for a time it was just me, Victoria and whatever thing we decided to hunt, well I had some problems with some stealth acid spiders, but then i wiped out their nest"

"...you wiped out... a nest of stealth acid spiders?"

"yeah? they were annoying... the queen even destroyed my vest... it was such a nice vest, I spent a whole 5 days on that vest... wait why are you looking at me like that?"

not only Reimund and his wife Irene looked at him funny also the poker faced maid Elsa looked at him funny, and they did so for a whole minute until Reimund broke the silence

"you... killed a stealth acid spider queen...?"

"yeah? it cost me a reaaalllly nice vest... 5 whole days of work and the finest pieces of wind deer hide"

"...do you have the core?"

Mars looked over at Elsa and saw the disbelief in her eyes, but was pleasantly surprised when he saw her brown eyes was pure with no sign of disdain and gave a slight smile

"yeah I should have it here somewhere..."

Mars reached into his backpack and pulled out a small leather pouch witch he opened and pulled out a blue magic core the size of a tennis ball and laid it on the table and picked up his cup and took a sip

"oh, this is some good tea"

"Irene... is it... real?"

"I don't know for sure unless I get a [appraiser] to look at it but... it certainly is the biggest magic core I have ever seen"

Reimund looked at Mars in disbelief and asked

"who... are you?"

Mars gave a slight smile and closed his eyes

"that's the wrong question...'what are you' would be better here I think"

Mars opened his eyes again only now they were transformed from his usual deep blue eyes into a eerie pair of blood red vertical slits eyes that quickly turned back to normal again when he blinked leaving Reimund, Irene and Elsa with truly funny faces while Mars calmly sipped his tea

"I have a question if you don't mind"

Reimund snapped out of his daze and gave a slight smile

"...sure Mars ask away"

Mars reached into his pack again and pulled out a small wooden plate with 2 small symbols etched into it, on of them was a sword and the other was a bow

"can you tell me what these symbols mean?"

Mars had made a couple of these wooden plates over the time he was living with the elvers and had used this one to copy the symbols on the necklaces that the 5 goons wore

"oh that's simple, the bow symbol is for the hunters guild and the sword is for the mercenaries guild"

"then what does the material the symbols are on mean?"

Reimund looked over at Irene that answered after she took a sip of tea

"the material of the tag represents the rank of the person wearing it, for example if it's a wooden hunter tag and a iron mercenary tag then the person wearing it is a rank 0 hunter and a rank 2 mercenary"

"...okay, then how many ranks are there?"

"there are 9 ranks in total form lowest to highest is wood, stone, iron, steel, silver, gold, platinum, mythril and then adamant.i.te"

"...I see, then what rank of hunter would one need to be to kill a stealth acid spider queen?"

Irene looked at Reimund that gave a shrug in return before she answered

"probably a squad of gold's? I have no idea honestly I was only silver rank hunter when I retired"

"okay... now for my last question, you don't have to answer this if you don't want to"

Reimund gave a slight frown before he gave a nod, Irene also narrowed her eyes slightly while they both waited on Mars to continue, but he just closed his eyes and took a deep breath through his nose

"this smell... it's medicine, pure alcohol and brunt flesh right?"

"that's...right, but how can you smell that form here?"

Irene looked a little dazed as she asked Mars, but before he answer the maid Elsa spoke

"Mars has very good senses... he also found out about my daggers though his hearing"

Irene and Reimund's expressions dimed slightly and after a little while Irene spoke in a sorrowful tone

"it's our daughter... she had an accident at school and now she's in... a coma"

"I see... well that should be good enough payment for the tea and information I have received, would you mind showing me the way to her?"

"...why?"

Mars emptied his cup of tea and stood up before he gave a pure smile

"well so I can heal her of cause"