We soon arrived at the manor, and then headed to the garden where the governor was. A middle-aged man who had some white hair, has a kind but slightly cunning face, this was my first impression of Riener Ernest, the governor of starry night city.

“Oh Grace, you are finally back, sit down sit down, your friends too, we have some stuff to discuss”

He said as he pointed at four chairs that were a bit to the side. We sat down anyway, but to be honest I just wanted to get out of here as fast as possible and go for a city tour or something instead of these complex formal stuff.

“Listen to me Grace, I do believe that the cave’s problem has been solved, but I, more than most, know for sure that you aren’t capable of such a feat, especially in this too little of a time!”

“Well, father…..”

“It was brother Ian! He was so awesome! He was already finished with the cave by the time we reached there!”

Just as Grace was thinking of what to say, Tie, had already uttered what happened excitedly while pointing at me. Nonetheless, it wasn’t like this governor was the type to be deceived by pitiful tricks, so I didn’t really mind Tie’s ‘Excited confession’.

“Tie! Didn’t I already tell you to talk more politely especially with the governor? Want me to beat you up ?!”

“Now now Tia, no need for violence, there is no need to worry about that, you know you are both childhood friends with my only daughter, that I care for as much as I do for Grace…”

The governor calmed Tia who was on the verge of elbowing Tie, he flashed his eyes as he looked at me.

“Hmmmm, Ian was it, although I’m grateful for saving my city, I’d like to know what situation and reason took you there in the first place…”

“No need such suspicion, its like I said to your daughter, I was merely ‘passing by’.”

“I see, so you were just passing by… but do you really think is that really enough reason to enter a dark cave and even exterminate it?”

People could hardly absorb corrupted essence without a purification tool which is rarely found, so mostly, unless assigned a request to exterminate the cave, people would rarely destroy a cave since even core processing was hidden knowledge….

“More precisely, I did some calculations which showed that the gate is going to erupt very very soon, so I decided to do a good deed and save people’s lives, was that a bad thing to do?”

The guy probably had his reasons to have such extreme suspicion instead of partying for the gate’s destruction.

“Well, it’s true that it was going to erupt in three days, but how were you even capable of calculating this?”

“Huh? I have my own methods, do I really need to tell you about every secret I have?”

“Dad! Stop interrogating Mr. Ian, I have already checked, there is hardly any chance that Ian is one of ‘Them’.”

The governor’s expression changed slightly, but it eased up a bit as his questioning glare turned into a more tender and kind look….

“Ah, I have lost myself a little bit, please excuse me for this uncalled for behaviour!”

“Of course, it wasn’t that much anyway”

It looked like there were more to this than just that, who knew who this ‘Them’ referred to, I was still confused that the guy was having it hard, so I didn’t push back too much.

“Well then, since you saved our beloved city, whatever your reason for that was, you still did it, you deserve to be rewarded!”

The governor’s personality almost turned 180 degrees, from the bad cop to the good cop all of a sudden.

“As for the reward….. I know, you can ask for one thing for me, whether it is money or whatever, as long as it’s within my capabilities, I shall grant it for you!”