Law of Space and Time

Chapter 21: Interesting Encounter

"Ahem!" Theresa cleared her throat before giving the back of Erwin's hand a vicious pinch. "I take my eyes off you for one second and you're already flirting with other women! Who is it this time?"josei

Erwin winced with pain as he grumbled, "I didn't even get a chance to ask who she was before you you came!"

After hanging up Erwin's poem, the manager approached him with an apologetic smile as he said, "Sorry to keep you waiting, Mr. Erwin. It is a rule of our restaurant that your poem must be hung up before we can take you upstairs."

"What are these bullshit rules? If you ask me, you're just making a big fuss for nothing," Duke Tuhar said in a disgruntled voice.

The manager's smile remained unchanged, and it seemed that he wasn't fazed at all by the duke's words.

Seeing as the manager had treated him with nothing but respect, Duke Tuhar refrained from raising any further gripes.

Erwin was quite pleased to see this. It seemed that Duke Tuhar was a reasonable man who wouldn't take out his anger on others for no reason, even if he was in a bad mood.

The manager led Erwin and his group to the sixth floor, then smiled as he said, "All of the dishes have already been prepared, please enjoy."

Erwin looked into the room to find several huge tables laden with delicacies, and he was immediately rooted to the spot. "What is the meaning of this? There's way too much food here! Even if we had twice the number of people we do now, we still wouldn't be able to finish all of this!"

"This was arranged by our master. The meal is on the house, and it's a token of admiration for your brilliant poem," the manager explained with a smile.

"Even so, there's still no way we can finish all of this," Erwin said.

He felt like his poem may have struck a nerve with the owner of this restaurant. After all, he had made no effort to disguise his disdain and contempt toward the nobility in his poem. However, the poem was clearly of a very high quality, so the owner had no choice but to grant them entry to the restaurant, but at the same time, he was disgruntled by Erwin's poem, so he was offering up this overtly lavish feast to insult Erwin and his group. At the very least, that was Erwin's thought process.

Right at this moment, a young man suddenly made his way down the staircase as he said, "Please do not take any offense to this, my only intention is to offer you a fine meal."

The young man was wearing an intricately crafted half-mask. The top half of his face was completely concealed behind a mask that was covered in gold dust, leaving only a pair of brown eyes exposed.

Duke Tuhar wanted to insult the young man for hiding his face behind a mask, but before he had a chance to do so, he saw a hunch-backed elderly man make his way down the staircase behind the young man. His entire body was covered by a hooded cloak that was clearly too large for him, making it impossible to glean his appearance, but the wrinkly skin on the backs of his exposed hands was sufficient indication of his age. Duke Tuhar's brows furrowed slightly as he carefully watched the elderly man, and he decided to refrain from hurling any insults in the end.

Erwin was rather surprised to see this. He was waiting for Duke Tuhar to give the young man a hard time, but the duke had suddenly fallen silent.

"This is how I've always welcomed my guests, so please be at ease," the young man said with a smile as he stopped in front Erwin.

Erwin's heart jolted slightly at the sight of the young man. The way in which he spoke and walked was very unique in terms of his demeanor and disposition. His very presence made one feel as if they were basking in a warm spring breeze. Seeing as the young man harbored no ill will toward them, Erwin smiled as he said, "I was just making a joke earlier. If we go all out and eat as much as we can, we should be able to finish all of this, right, Yuho?"

Yuho was salivating profusely as he stared at the delicacies laid out before him, only to abruptly snap back to reality upon hearing his name being called by Erwin, and Faya was very amused by the sight of his dazed expression.

The masked man was even more curious about Erwin, given his effortless humor.

Before the young man had a chance to say anything further, Erwin turned to the rest of his group as he said, "All of you must be hungry, right? Dig in, there's no need to wait for me."

Not only had they been invited upstairs, they were also being treated to an extremely lavish meal, and Erwin knew that there had to be some other reason for this aside from the owner's appreciation of his poetry. Hence, he told everyone to go on ahead and eat without him. He didn't really care about the men in the group, but he couldn't bear to make the three women wait on empty stomachs any longer.

"Let's go upstairs and talk," Erwin said with a smile.

A surprised look appeared in the young man's eyes upon hearing this.

"Surely you didn't call me up here just to treat me to a meal, right?" Erwin asked.

The young man was even more intrigued by Erwin's character upon hearing this, and he made an inviting hand gesture toward the staircase as he said, "Please."

Onean rose to her feet before casting her gaze toward Erwin. She could sense that despite his hunched-over appearance, the elderly man was a very dangerous figure.

Erwin made a subtle reassuring gesture toward her. He could sense that the masked young man was only a very mediocre martial artist, so even if things were to go awry for some reason, he'd be able to take care of the young man with ease. On top of that, Erwin had always been a very accurate judge of character, and he could sense that there wasn't a single ounce of killing intent in the young man's body, so he was certain that he wasn't in any danger.

After the two young men had made their way upstairs, the elderly man continued to stand at the foot of the staircase.

The seventh floor was the top level of the Dreambind Pavilion, and it was an open area that allowed one to see the scenery of Finklan in its full glory.

"I only recently made it so much more difficult to enter the restaurant as I wanted to see if there were any outstanding figures among all of the rulers who have come to Finklan. I had no intention of purposefully embarrassing anyone," the young man said in a placid voice as his hair was tussled by the wind.

Erwin was rather taken aback to hear this, and he became even more curious about the young man's identity.

"That poem was just something I made up in the spur of the moment, so don't take it too seriously," Erwin said with a smile.

However, the young man shook his head in response. "Even if it is only a spur-of-the-moment creation, you were describing an inevitability."

The man then cast his gaze toward the distance as he murmured to himself, "All of this will come to an end someday, and to the south the golden sparrows of the north will go."

Erwin couldn't help but be reminded of the young woman he had met on the first floor of the restaurant upon hearing this.

"How truly laughable it is to think that the high and mighty nobles are prancing around like illiterate idiots, unable to write even a decent poem without relying on ghostwriters," the masked man sighed in a forlorn manner. "They are uneducated, they are completely out of touch with the people they rule over, and they turn a blind eye to all of the suffering around them. It is truly a disgrace to our ancestors that people like them are placed in such positions of power."

"The depravity of the nobility is not something that has only recently set in. This has been a problem that has steadily worsened over the course of decades and centuries, and it's not something that can be resolved anytime soon," Erwin said in an indifferent voice.

"Aren't you currently working on a solution right now?" the young man asked as he turned to Erwin with a faint smile.

Erwin was rather taken aback to hear this.

"Perhaps other people are unaware of the City of Freedom, but I've heard some things about it."

Erwin's heart jolted slightly upon hearing this, and he couldn't help but feel a little wary toward the young man. After all, Erwin had no idea what the political climate in Finklan was like and he didn't even have the slightest inkling who this young man was.

Thus, out of caution, Erwin smiled as he waved a dismissive hand. "That's just something that I'm fooling around with in my spare time. I wouldn't dare to actually do anything against the nobility."

A hint of disappointment appeared on the young man's face upon hearing this. "I thought you were going to be an extremely ambitious man, but it appears I was mistaken."

Erwin merely smiled and offered no response to this.

"Having said that, this wasn't entirely a waste of time. At the very least, I managed to meet someone as interesting as yourself," the young man said with a faint smile.

Erwin gave an ambiguous response, clearly having developed a great deal of caution toward the young man.

The young man's enthusiasm for chatting with Erwin was beginning to wane as he could see that Erwin was becoming more and more cautious of him. However, the two of them still discussed some topics related to art, and they discovered that they shared many opinions when it came to things like poems and stage plays.

By the time Erwin returned to the sixth floor, everyone had already finished the main course and were blissfully enjoying the desserts on offer. Thankfully, the owner of the Dreambind Pavilion had been very generous, so even after everyone had finished eating, there was still a lot of the main course dishes remaining. The only ones who truly dug into the feast were Turan, Yuho, and the guards who had accompanied Erwin. The Farody Brothers were quite wealthy themselves, and they were in the presence of beautiful women like Onean, so they were very restrained and focused more and maintaining immaculate table manners than enjoying the meal.

As for Duke Tuhar, he had become a lot more subdued after seeing the cloaked elderly man, and he barely said anything throughout the course of the entire meal.

Erwin was already so hungry that he didn't even feel it anymore, so he left the restaurant with everyone after having only a few quick bites to eat. The main concern on his mind was that he had no idea who the young man was, so he didn't dare to linger at the restaurant for any longer than necessary.

After leaving the restaurant, Erwin bade farewell to Duke Tuhar, in response to which Duke Tuhar happily expressed that he was looking forward to seeing Erwin again. Erwin knew that seeing as Duke Tuhar was the representative of the Fantiwenross Dukedom, they were definitely going to meet again during the imperial conference.

After that, Erwin and his group went to search for a place to stay.

...

Strangely enough, not long after the departure of Erwin and his group, the bright and sunny weather suddenly took a drastic turn. Forbidding dark clouds seemed to have emerged out of nowhere, and initially, only a light shower of rain fell from the heavens, but that soon escalated into a full-blown storm.

The young man was still standing at the top of the Dreambind Pavilion, seemingly lost in his own thoughts, and before he knew it, he was already being pelted by rain. Shortly thereafter, the hunch-backed elderly man made his way up the stairs before draping a leopard skin cape over the young man's shoulders. "You should go downstairs before you catch a cold."

"What do you think of Erwin?" the young man suddenly asked.

"His poem was exceptional, but he's not a good person," the elderly man replied.

The young man pondered this answer for a moment before bursting into laughter.

Right at this moment, another group of people arrived outside the restaurant, wishing to seek shelter from the rain inside the establishment.

They were led by a red-haired woman of peerless beauty.

The young man couldn't help but take an extra glance at the red-haired beauty from his vantage point at the top of the pavilion, and he remarked, "What's going on today? Since when were such exceptional beauties such a common sight? You saw the silver-haired woman with Erwin, right? Take a look at that red-haired woman downstairs. Neither of them lose to Prime Minister Henry's daughter in the looks department."

The elderly man didn't seem to be very interested in this subject, and he offered no response.

A short while later, a poem was brought up from downstairs, and once again, the young man was thoroughly impressed by what he saw.

"Lana... That's a fine name befitting of such a fine woman," the young man remarked to himself.

"How do you this Lana is the red-haired woman?" the elderly man asked. "I believe I spotted another woman in their group."

"It's definitely her, there's no doubt about it. The other woman that you're talking about is giving off intense sword energy. There's no way a woman like that could've written such a beautiful poem," the young man said with a smile.

A faint smile also appeared on the elderly man's face upon hearing this justification.

After that, the young man and the elderly man made their way downstairs, and at this point, Lana and her group were the only customers left in the Dreambind Pavilion. All of the rowdy men with them were waiting obediently under the eave outside the restaurant, and the two women were the only ones in the hall on the first floor.

The red-haired woman was standing alone under Erwin's poem, looking as if she were about to burst into sorrowful tears, and the young man was rather perplexed to see this. While it was true that Erwin had left behind an exceptional poem, it was far from a tear-jerker.

The azure-armored woman accompanying the red-haired woman sat down onto a chair, then said, "Looks like you were right. I'm sure we'll be able to see him here in Finklan."

As soon as the elderly man arrived on the first floor, his gaze was immediately drawn to the azure-armored woman, and his brows furrowed tightly upon hearing her voice. In his memory, the owner of the voice was already supposed to have been long dead.

However, the red-haired woman seemed to have not heard anything. There was a film of tears shimmering in her eyes, but even through those tears, the signature of "Erwin Friar" at the bottom of the poem was still as clear as ever.

All of her efforts had finally led her to the same city as the man of her heart.