Darius moved to sit down on the couch while he told Gunner to relax. The large lad appeared to be restless in his new environment and proceeded to explore the huge chamber and all its decorations.
Darius left him to it while he removed the Digital Tablet from his Inventory and turned it on. Once the tab came on, Darius quickly understood that it had to have been pre-owned, and likely by a little girl at that.
The reason for this conclusion was the over-saturation of the color pink within the tablet's software. Pink theme, pink-ish wallpaper, and pink buttons.
Fortunately for Darius, they hadn't bothered to password lock their device, probably due to being too young to know any better.
Whatever the case, Darius easily navigated the menus and factory reset the entire device. If this item had belonged to an adult, he would have carefully perused all pictures, documents, and music to ascertain the culture and style of Gravitas more intimately.
However, since it belonged to a child or teenager, he was not interested in finding out. This was not a pragmatic choice at all, but one fueled by his own emotions and personal beliefs.
Well, the beauty of being his own man was the fact that Darius did not need to justify or explain his actions to anyone but himself, especially since he hardly surrounded himself with equals who would slow him down.
After waiting for the tablet to clean itself out, Darius went through the initial set-up and registered it under his name. Darius then checked the about page in the settings to see the specs of this tablet and was surprised to find that it had 400 TB of space despite its small size.
He chuckled over the default apps and basic themes. The style of this Gravitas tablet was similar to Earth back in the early 2000s. Darius, who was born in the 2060s, only knew of those things from history books and pop culture.
After playing around with a few features, he switched off the tablet and rummaged in his Inventory once more. He pulled out the steel spear he had upgraded from the iron one a few days ago.
[Steel Spear - Weapon
Durability: 100/100
Quality: Perfect
Damage: 12-17
Description: A sharp and balanced spear made of high-grade steel and the best possible craftsmanship. Created through pure Transmutation.]
Seeing that there was still a lot of daylight left, Darius decided to bring Gunner with him as they refined their teamwork in battle, but not before Darius also inspected what Gunner's only skill was.
[Engage - Level 1 Skill
Cost: None
Description: As a Vanguard, you must be able to stand at the forefront of battle and pave the way for your allies. This skill aggroes all enemies within 5 meters of the user.]
Darius nodded, this was exactly what he wanted. A Branded Servant who could attract enemy attention away while he dished out the necessary damage.
Making sure everything was set, Darius exited his room with Gunner in tow. On his way out, he saw Shanks talking to Derek while patting his son on the shoulder.
Both father and son were smiling about something, yet were shocked when they saw Darius appear, especially since he was accompanied by a stranger. Seeing them, Darius approached the duo and greeted them.
"Good day, Sir Shanks and Friend Derek. How are you today?"
Shanks replied for the duo. "Good day, Master Darius. All's well on the farm and we thank the Gods for that."
Shanks' eyes fell on Gunner as it seemed like he wanted to say something, but wasn't sure how to put it. Darius chuckled and introduced his servant.
"This here is Gunner. He is a powerful half-giant warrior working for my house and my personal guard. He only arrived recently thanks to my family's tracking and refuses to leave my side." Darius introduced him while making sure to complain with a sigh.
Once they heard this, the duo relaxed and even shared a knowing look. Shanks was very familiar with the methods of the noble houses while Derek was intuitive. The duo instantly understood more of Darius' supposed background and why he was here.
In their minds, Darius had to be a runaway scion who had set out to explore the world and play around with his magic under the guise of 'experiments'. Otherwise, why the hell would a noble lad like him be all the way out here?!
Now that he had been 'found', it was likely he wouldn't be staying much longer with them. This relieved Shanks and Derek because, unlike Portia, they were wary of the troubles that could come with housing a noble scion for long.
For one, if something happened to Darius and his noble family found out that they had been housing him, it would be extremely troublesome to resolve that issue.
If they couldn't find the actual culprits, it was practically guaranteed that the homestead would have to become a scapegoat, yet they couldn't outright sack Darius either.
Him leaving on his own was the best possible outcome!
Shanks grinned. "No worries, Lord Darius. Friend Gunner can stay for as long as you will be with us, no problem."
Darius nodded gratefully, but grumbled under his breath. "Not like that will be much longer anyway."
His grumble was done in a murmur, but he purposefully said it loud enough that both Shanks and Derek would be able to hear it. Both male members of the Torniam family practically lit up as they bid farewell to Darius, their shoulders visibly much lighter.
Darius watched them leave with their smiles. His eyes flashed into serpentine slits for a split-second but returned to normal in the very next instant.
Gunner, who had been looking at Darius the whole time, flinched slightly but did not comment on it, instead his intense gaze returned as his eyes narrowed.
Gunner had never seen such a phenomenon in his life, but his intuition told him that in the split-second Darius' eyes had morphed, he had been looking at a source of evil and malevolence that should rival even the demons of Armadon.
