A couple of days had passed since the incident, and the matter with the Guilds had essentially been dealt with.
Shore was sent to the frontlines as a volunteer. After all, she essentially counted as a leader. If she survived, she would return in three years, but she probably wouldn't work as a representative anymore.
She kind of burned all bridges when she kept shouting at Wild.
Naga decided to join the army of her own volition. Apparently, she never wanted to be a representative. She just did that because her sister was the Naga Covenant's Guild Leader.
However, since her sister had joined the army, there was no point for Naga to remain.
She simply followed her sister and joined the army.
Meanwhile, Kyle would just stay here as the Guild's representative.
'Boss hasn't said anything,' Kyle thought. 'You would think that he would say something when I finally get to meet the target of his revenge for the first time.'
'Yet, he's just quiet.'
'Is he just that careful?'
Kyle thought back to his meeting with King Skysand.
'He's very… neutral?'
'I mean, he doesn't seem like some kind of evil overlord.'
'He doesn't seem overly polite.'
'He doesn't seem like a super nice hero.'
'He doesn't seem like a mighty king, worthy of respect.'
'But he also doesn't seem like somebody you shouldn't respect.'
'He's not overbearing, but he's also not a pushover.'
'It's like, I feel like I should just be a bit careful about what I say. I can't be completely casual, but I also don't need to be too polite.'
'It's so… average. Normal. Unassuming. Regular.'
'It's like he's just a regular guy.'
'If it weren't for his position, he would be quite forgettable, actually.'
'He has the fancy name of Hieronymus, but he acts more like a John or Charlie.'
Then, Kyle remembered the Crown Prince and the Princess he had seen on his first day in the castle.
'In fact, those two also don't seem special. Larian felt like a regular boss. Sure, he wasn't perfect, but he was pretty good overall. The Princess also seemed quite normal.'
'It's like they are all just regular people.'
'It's like I'm in the Normie Kingdom.'
Kyle scratched the back of his head.
'Yeah, well, who cares? None of that matters anyway.'
'Gotta focus on my muscles, including the ones in my brain. Big Kyle need big bicep or stone go bang and Kyle go pop.'
After a couple of days, Kyle had to interrupt his training for the weekly meeting.
When he saw the Crown Prince, Kyle immediately asked a question.
"Hey, do you need me in the weekly meetings?" he asked.
Larian took a deep breath.
Technically, Kyle was still the representative of a Four-Weapons Guild, which meant that he had to attend the meetings.
But there was literally no use case in which Kyle would ever be needed.
The entire Stark Brotherhood was currently deployed on the central frontlines.
All of them were in constant contact with high-ranking officers.
All of them were already contributing to the kingdom's defenses as much as they could.
Even if there were a huge crisis, it wouldn't matter. After all, the General of Skysand was on the frontlines, and he could just directly contact them.
Kyle had an important position, but due to the current situation, his position became meaningless.
He was like a marine biologist stuck on a space station.
Technically, Larian could tell Kyle that he had to attend the meetings.
But what was the point?
Sure, Larian wanted to give Kyle some pushback for all the shit he had caused in the kingdom. Forcing him to attend the meetings would feel good.
'But if I'm honest, I actually don't want him in the meetings,' Larian thought.
"It's fine," Larian said. "If we need anything, we will call your amulet."
"Cool!" Kyle said with a thumbs-up before leaving again.
Larian just sighed.
Kyle went back to his storage room and started focusing more on his power.
Over the past nine months, he had already made quite a bit of progress.
He had created a couple more Methods, and he had also simplified the way Methods could be upgraded.
A lot of the awkwardness was gone.
Yet, there was still so much to learn.
More months passed.
One day, he got a letter from someone in Starkhold.
Someone had noticed that Kyle's mine in Starkhold wasn't being operated anymore and offered to buy it off his hands.
Kyle just shrugged and sold it for a couple of Ether Gems.
Money was no longer an issue.
Michael's profits were growing more and more as he kept creating more Spells, and Kyle was earning enough from that.
Additionally, his actual mine in the Forest Haven Cradle was also producing a lot of money.
By now, Kyle owned over 2,000 Ether Gems.
He was genuinely rich.
As more time passed, Kyle's storage room in the castle was starting to get cramped.
He was using up a lot of ore simply by firing it out of the cannon or by learning about it, but he was still getting more ore than he was using. One year after Kyle had arrived in the castle, he asked for a second storage room.
Naturally, he got his wish.
15 months after Kyle had arrived in the castle, his amulet rang.
He quickly charged to the throne room, where he saw Larian.
"That was just a test to see if you were actually reachable," Larian said. "You can go back."
Kyle blinked a couple of times. "Eh, yeah, sure."
Kyle went back to training.
By now, he was also focusing on other things.
For example, he was not only looking at the concepts behind powerful explosions and extreme speeds but also at the concepts of weak explosions and slow speeds.
He wanted to understand as much as possible.
Understanding weaker explosions and slower speeds was much easier than expected.
In fact, Kyle only needed a couple of months to understand everything there was to know about speeds between zero kilometers per hour and one kilometer per second.
But the way Ether moved, starting at speeds of one kilometer per second, was much more complex and needed much more research and focus to understand.
However, Kyle had been trying to understand this level of speed for about three years now, and those three years were showing an effect.
He knew that he would be done very soon.
tg://resolv?domain=StrongestHammerGod
The author's patreon. If he gets more than 1000€ per month, he will increase the number of words in the chapter.