Now that the battle had finished, the subordinates retrieved the ships and the very few captured prisoners while the nobles went to meet their respective descendants.
Of course it didn't escape their eyes that the male nobles were kept in a cage and so a small group formed by their parents and relatives glared at Daimon as they demanded an explanation.
"Why is my son imprisoned?", asked one of the high ranked nobles.
"Where s my son, he was in the same group as that boy?", asked another noble.
Similar comments could be heard coming from the crows, to be honest Daimon wasn't in the mood to deal with them, he felt a bit dizzy after using Core Synchrony with so little time of difference, and also, he had to use half of his mana reserves in that state to force Shyrel to scream.
"Because we caught some "bad eggs" who offered to sell the princesses to the Skelefiends and the pirates, to save their own skin… it seems to be becoming a popular trend nowadays I would say", said Daimon as he stole a gaze at the Blackfin Duke who gritted his teeth in response, but remained silence.
'Who, told you to meddle in my business', thought Daimon as he inwardly grinned.
As Daimon expected now that some of the nobles have their parents "backing" at hand again, though were quiet earlier suddenly got pretty brave.
"Dad, this guy freed the girls to flirt but we were kept in the cage with these pirates!".
"Uncle, we were tortured and threatened by the Skelefiends, they even broke the legs of some of us to use them as bait to capture their targets, it was a living hell".
"They took Max and he didn't return… yet this guy treated us like criminals".
Listening to the bitter complains of the nobles, Daimon simply smirked as he glared at their parents, giving them knowing gazes, as he added.
"That being said, they were free to leave the cage as soon as we arrived at the back of the battlefield, as to why they didn't do it, it beats me".
Most of the nobles had unconvinced expressions, but they understood that the silver haired youth was giving them a way out, by not announcing who did what, under the pretext of "human nature", which is basically the desire to survive through any means, but as nobles they are supposed to preserve their dignity, instead of coward inside a cage.
How could these old foxes not know they were getting a warning "Don't mess with me or I will ruin you", if they minded their own business then they had nothing to worry about, this was the correct way to deal with selfish nobles, something Elaine as the matriarch of the Revy family taught Daimon, in other words politics.
So now the former significant crowd divided in two parts, those whose descendants were still alive who simply yelled.
"Little bastard shut for this old man, you left yourself be captured by the enemy and survived this will help you form some character!", shouted one of the high ranked nobles, making it look as if it was a life lesson.
Following that high ranked noble the other ones also reprimanded their respective relatives, and when they tried to complain they got death stared by them.
The smaller group left were those whose descendants were paired with the ones in the cages, but weren't at sight.
"Where is my nephew!", asked one of the nobles, judging by the emblem on his clothes he was from one of the subordinated families of the old noble houses, a Half Stellar rank and a Marquess.
Daimon simply shrugged in response.
"What you can see is what I have, not everyone ended in the same place as me, not to mention that underwater space was too wide, on the other hand I'm not a babysitter so go try luck with the next groups".
"What!", the noble was outraged.
"Why didn't you look for the others, thanks to your selfishness I might have lost the most talented member of my family's young generation!", shouted the noble.
"It's not my fault that your descendants are weak, we all came here knowing the risks, if you don't want them to be in any danger keep them chained in your castles and mansions".
After saying that, Daimon ignored the rest of the nobles because the answer applied to them too and he just walked away.
Some showed signs to want to follow him, but when they saw Jasmine, Mellie and Daphne still tagging along with him, despite the fact that their mothers and grandmother respectively were now present, which led them to believe there was more to the silver haired youth than what met the eye.
Speaking of Jasmine she was talking with a small group of girls from the Bamboo Forest sect, among them the daughter of patriarch underwood who approached Daimon.
"Little friend, my daughter told me everything that happened, as the patriarch of a sect I concede you the status of honored guest, as long as I'm alive you'll be welcomed in the Bamboo Forest sect for saving my wife's disciples… as a father I can't never repay you for saving my Cassy, so please accept this sign of friendship from me", said Underwood as he extended his hand at Daimon offering a handshake.
The Bamboo Forest sect was pretty reserved in what friends regarded; they didn't use the word "friend" lightly, that's why Aurora supported her granddaughter to be best friends with the daughter of Underwood, and her decision proved to be right, as she never stopped believing or defending her friend, despite Jasmine teaming with Adam instead of her, due to him playing some tricks.
Daimon shook his head in response, he accepted the handshake but still said.
"Don't mention it, to be honest I did it because Jasmine asked for my help… and it aligned with my plans too".
Underwood smiled in response.
"Nonetheless, you still helped her while you could have ignored it", he said as he patted Daimon's shoulder and left to his daughter's side.
'What a strange guy', thought Daimon, as he walked away too, he felt an intense gaze on his back and looking for the source of it, he saw that tall black-haired woman who Karmandi called Empress smiling at him with her eyes closed.
A strange group had gathered near Daimon, a large army of magic beasts, the Black Empress and her generals, Aurora, Vincent, the queen, the Valas Duchess and of course Mellie, Daphne and Jasmine.
"You fulfilled your mission perfectly, this spear will be your reward", said Daimon as he handed the bone general the spear which caused a discussion earlier, of course the Blackfin Duke saw a mere Mortal ranked getting such a decent magic weapon and he felt insulted, but no one was paying him attention now.
"Thanks young master, Horals will humbly accept this gift!", said Horals as he received the spear, it was a bit strange to see the bone general being so enthusiastic about a weapon, but he probably had his reasons, so Daimon didn't question him.
Daimon then walked towards Aisha and the Risha sisters who were talking with Mellie and Jasmine, the bone general woke up from his daze and with a wave of his hand he created a large decorated metal chair for Daimon.
"Young master, please", he said as he made a noble salute with his hand pointed at the chair which was obviously a throne.
Daimon felt the gazes of the nobles falling on him and he chuckled but he didn't care and just sat on the chair, of course the bone general was "considerate" enough to make other seats for his young master's companions.
"Who does he think he is, acting so disrespectful in front of the king", of course the nobles couldn't help but gossip between themselves.
Aisha and the Risha sisters giggled and sat next to Daimon, the searching party was taking a bit too much time to return, and he didn't want to be standing waiting for them.
What caught the attention of the nobles is that the black armored guy which at this point everyone knew was the protector of the silver haired youth, built seats not only for those girls they didn't recognize, but even the three princesses, and they happily took them.
Not only that but the queen who normally fiercely keep the male nobles away from her younger sister didn't say anything, Daimon exchanged gazes with Karmandi and the snake general nodded at him, but they were interrupted by the Trident Marshal saying.
"They are finally back".
The search party formed who used flying ships as a mean of transportation, returned with a varied number of expressions, the three ships at the front lead by the crowned prince, the son of the Blackfin Duke and the young spear from the neo nobles, each had their own ship because the deck was full of restrained magic beasts.
There were also the twin princes and other high ranked nobles at the second row, and to other people surprised they also saw two girls they didn't recognize, they were the alfear and dwarf princesses, Tessa and Femi.
The ships at the third row were mostly occupied by nobles with defeated expressions, some had some slight wounds and grim expressions.
It was obvious that the ships didn't return with as many people as the adults expected, which made some of them pale, the chances of their descendants being stranded but alive were honestly really low.
The Trident Marshal sighed, but he still felt positive regarding the result, in a rough calculation, only about 15% percent of the participants were missing, though another 25% had different grade wounds and others were mentally affected, considering how the Skelefiends and pirates took them by surprise, the damage was really low.
The three leading ships arrived first and the crowned prince, the young spear and the son of the Blackfin Duke, jumped as they bowed in front of Vincent.
"Lord Trident Marshal, we were attacked by the Skelefiends and pirates, but still brough back some trophies to be counted!".
The old Vincent nodded in affirmation, the amount of dead magic beasts was quite hefty, worthy of the three top candidates.
"Very well, the formation is stable once again, let's head to Warhammer city to count the results".
With a tap of his foot, the Trident Marshal activated the formation and a large portal opened.
Following the indications of Vincent, everyone went through the portal and safely returned to the city, Vincent even allowed the Black Empress to come with them, with Annete's warrant that she came here in friendly terms, one more ally is one less enemy so the Trident Marshal followed through with it.
Those who required immediate attention were brough to the infirmary at the mansion of the city lord, while their guardians followed them, but others stayed behind wanting to see the result of the first event.
Luckily there were seats prepared for everyone, the judges which were Vincent, Aurora, the queen and the king occupied their seats in front of all the others.
Vincent then pointed at the plate where the scores were displayed.
"According to the registered scores, the top three are the crowned prince, the young spear and the second son of the Blackfin clan head, is there anyone who has more points to be manually added?".
Some of the nobles stood up, most only wanted to climb a few more ranks and had no hope of overthrowing the top three, one by one they went and got their extra points added to their scores and everything stayed pretty much the same, until a girl with a mix of black and blonde hair and a white haired girl with red eyes presented their results.
A small mountain of death magic beasts appeared in front of the judges, which made the king frown.
"Young misses, the idea is to present those beasts which weren't counted as they were brought back alive?".
Tessa nodded before saying.
"The magic array failed minutes prior to the end of the beast hunt, and so these points weren't counted, but me and my friend hunted them in time, as a proof of that the star marks are still engraved on their skin".
The Trident Marshal inspected the corpses of the magic beasts and nodded.
"It's truth, count them and add the points to their score", he ordered to one of his subordinates.
The guy made a quick check and soon he had the result which was then manually added to the score.
"Woah!", surprised expressions appeared on the faces of the nobles… the team in question surpassed the first ranked, in other words the crowned prince was now the second ranked and the son of the Blackfin Duke was pushed out of the top three.
Which impressed the judges, with the exception of the king, as his son wasn't the top one and the difference was pretty large, so there was a chance that he might not recover.
"Ahem, very well done, can the previous top three come ahead?", asked the king.
Tessa and Femi returned to their seats, not without stealing a gaze at Daimon who was calmly observing everything, they made their utmost knowing that he was their biggest competitor.
