Chapter 382: Five Neutral Organisations

“Ah!, so it was my family too, huaaa~. Ah, it’s nothing, if you also fell it means, there are times when one doesn’t understand the importance of things in one’s own heart, hee~. Come to think of it, little Cordelia has already arrived in the middle world, hopefully we can meet up soon.”

“I completely agree with you, I already want to see my sister, I haven’t seen them for five years. I was able to meet with my father and mother, they even said that my cute and bitter, but very cute little sister is behaving better, and my mother said so. I can’t wait, I’m really completely out of Phinamiun, to the point where I think I’ll go crazy, it was five years, hehehe~, how will it have grown, I have to buy a lot of engraving stones and-”

“Wait! Huh? ah!? Sir Raphael?”

“? What’s wrong?”

“What was that… what happened to him all of a sudden? What was that weird laugh?”

“…I don’t understand what you mean, I just felt a little happy to remember my little sister.”

“No, I just never met her be-…. What is Phinamiun?”

“Well, it’s the energy I get from being around the most adorable creature, you know, it’s hard to get closer than two metres, but it’s still worth it, and that look of contempt as if she always sees rubbish makes her even more adorable, even when she gets angry because I can’t fulfil simple requests like stopping breathing, they’re something that…”.

“Y-y-you! Who are you? Is this another test? Where is Sir Raphael? Are they all fakes? What is this about? At what point did this test start?”

Suddenly things got weird. Hearing Raphael, Lirena immediately turned away from him and started to panic somewhat, shouting and looking distrustfully at Raphael and around her.

In her mind this was definitely wrong, and being at a testing site, she began to draw out various conjectures immediately.

“Ehem, calm down, Miss Lirena. I don’t understand your sudden confusion, but you could calm down; you’re drawing a lot of attention to yourself.”

“Yeah, it’s weird to see her yelling at you. Was it because of the previous test? Even if she has a conflict, it’s best not to get worked up, it could be dangerous.”

At that moment his subordinates, as well as Vasil along with some of his subordinates, began to approach; they seemed to want to mediate the problem.

’Sir Vasil, I’m glad you’re alright, and no, it’s not a fight, I guess you confused it because I got a little excited remembering my little sister, who I haven’t seen in a long time.’

“He’s lying! He’s not Sir Raphael, he would never act like that. This must be part of the test, he never talked about her to begin with and now all of a sudden he’s a loving brother, his personality isn’t even like that.”

“/_ Yes, I really didn’t want to mention it, because I felt that if I did, I wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation to go and see her. Normally, I wouldn’t have cared at all and would have gone with her, but knowing that there was a possibility that she would come in the next generation, and because my mothers scolded me since they knew that I would not want to return afterwards, I restrained myself and set out to create a safe place for her, and even more so because it was confirmed that she would come, it is also good that she did not respond to my messages because, otherwise, I would have gone there. When she arrived in the intermediate world, I almost invaded the royal mansion to see her, but I held back. The barrier was very strong and I couldn’t get through it. I really accepted this in order to distance myself a little and hold on until…”

“…you, who are you?”

“You see, sir Vasil, he is not Raphael. This must be the test; perhaps he is not the only impostor. We must find the rest and, more importantly, find the real ones. It shouldn’t be difficult; they don’t even seem to know who he’s impersonating and just talk meaningless nonsense, things the original person would never say or do.”

[[ehem! Miss, don’t jump to conclusions, the test hasn’t even started yet and boy, I’ve only known you for a short while and I’m surprised too; you don’t seem to be calm when it comes to your family]].

“Eh!!, you’re telling me he’s Sir Raphael, not a test?”

[[Well, yes, anyway, let’s not waste time. Congratulations to everyone for passing the third test, The Feast of Concord]]

’’…’’

[[As you can see, there are only 45 of you left and, on the table, there are only 6 dishes; each one is an elixir of the highest quality and I assure you that it will strengthen you, to the point that, below Soul Conversion, you will rise at least one rank. But you can’t split it; if you want the effect to work you must eat the whole thing. As for how they’ll deal it out, I’ll leave that up to you. The barrier will be lifted in ten seconds]].

With that said, Artur disappeared from the scene as quickly as he appeared, leaving a great deal of tension and anticipation towards the dishes on the table. A few moments late, Raphael was the first to react.

“Well, Sir Vasil, we need to get organised quickly. Sir Clarence doesn’t seem to have passed the tests, so we also need to get those of his faction in order; there are also some of the five guilds he controls, and I don’t know under what clauses he hired them.”

“Ah, now you do sound like Raphael. No… rather, you are right. Tomas, tidy up and don’t let anyone touch the dishes.”

“눈_눈”

“Miss Lirena, why don’t you move? These ten seconds are critical.”

“눈_눈 Yes, you’re right… just… no, well, we’ll clear this up later.”

Actually, today to Raphael, it seemed that Lirena was acting a bit strange. Not to mention the complications of the previous test, but now he was concentrating on the test; he had to act fast.

The factions are not really large groups; considering that in all realms, only fifty at most are usually the representatives.

Depending on the number of factions, the number can be smaller, but they are always between 15 to 25 people per faction. These are the faction cores, which are supported by the kingdoms and filled with privileges and resources.

But that does not mean that these are the only ones within a faction.

The Middle Worl, although very strictly guarded, does not prevent people from entering it, so various people from different parts of the continent enter it.

They can be those who did not give up even if they were not selected as representatives; those who want to become strong even if they did not have the chance to be backed by the kingdoms; or older generations who want to try their luck and move up the ranks.

The latter, at first, could be a problem, as some already had the upper limit that the Middle Kingdom had and had a lot of leverage. But under the protection and specialised nurturing of the kingdoms, easily the kingdom leaders and representatives caught up.

Faction leaders, where more resources were accumulated, became invincible in their rank; that was the methodology implemented by all kingdoms, at least in the first generation, where more care had to be taken.

Eventually, as they became the strongest beings allowed in the Middle Kingdom, they tacitly became the leaders, and the kingdoms gave them their support as they are named as their representatives in the middle world and in the struggle for resources.

With many people entering the Middle Realm, their factions welcomed more people, although they do not have all the privileges of being the representatives.

But if they were lucky and made great achievements, they could receive resources, privileges and act as representatives, making the kingdoms support their actions. If not, they would only receive the leftovers of the representatives.

Still, each faction had no more than fifty people, and the largest factions had no more than a hundred so far.

There were many factions, and although they were like the kings of various places in the Middle Kingdom, they were not everything, nor did they manage all the human resources of the Middle World.

This is because, in addition, there were five neutral organisations to which anyone could belong whether or not they were part of the factions.

These are: the Mercenary Guild, the Mages’ Guild, the Alchemists’ Guild, the Blacksmiths’ Guild, and the churches.

These societies coexisted with the factions of all the kingdoms and were organisations run jointly by the five kingdoms, with no clear leader in place.

They functioned to keep under control those who did not belong and did not want to belong to any faction, and to provide personnel to the factions, of course, at a price for their labour and contributions.

It was a system that avoided a lot of unnecessary problems for the factions.

..

’I have to be careful, this is not that simple, Sir Artur said this is connected to the next test.’

For this large-scale expedition, and for which a certain range of forces was needed, Clarence, who was no longer around, had hired mercenaries, some mages and alchemists.

Raphael looked at the distribution and noted that, even taking into account the Clares faction, which had none of its key figures, they were balanced with the people hired.

Care had to be taken, especially with such a dangerous temptation as elixirs, which even he would be lying if he said he wasn’t tempted.

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