"So, what did you want to ask ? I only have ti for one question."
Kieran was silent for a mont after hearing Evan's question, sorting through the things he had to ask in his head and finally choosing the one he felt had the most priority.
"You have intentions to interfere in our plans, and on my Empire's side…. why?
What's in it for you?"
Evan had not hidden his intention to side with the Great Eastern Empire during their invasion of Wolfen, and Kieran wanted to know why the boy wished to do this.
"Hmm…the reason why, huh?
For starters, your plans would fail and end up in the deaths of multiple Grandmasters and Epic-level existences, along with tens of millions dying if I'm not present."
"WHAT?!"
Kieran couldn't help but exclaim in shock when he heard Evan's words, causing heads to turn in their direction, but Evan casually continued speaking.
"You may have planned to brute force things, but brute forcing it would not end well. Especially considering the fact that the 'ruins' you're targeting, belong to my predecessor.
Even if you do manage to break the door open, the entire 'ruins' would self-destruct, and from the sheer magnitude of the resultant explosion, it would be an understatent to say that country would completely cease to exist."
The boy dusted his sleeves and readjusted his tie as if he did not just talk about the entirety of Wolfen being wiped off the map before continuing.
"Didn't you find it odd that despite being so close to their capital state, everything within a few kilotres of the 'ruins' was a barren wasteland?
They succeeded in breaking open the compound's front gate, and that's the price they paid.
Also, everything you guys discovered so far, it's all a large carefully constructed dummy. The real base, was never above ground."
Evan dropped those words as he made his way over to where Duke Charles and Ralphie were, leaving behind Kieran who was finally given the answer to one of the questions he and the Seventh Star General who led the infiltration into Wolfen had.
◇ ◇ ◇
The main event of the Party, the Rewards Presentation began shortly after, and things went as Evan had expected.
Nobility Titles, Military Promotions, Monetary Rewards, and Territories.
These were the main rewards that were being presented to the awardees present, depending on their affiliation.
Of course, only the ones in the top 5% of each awardee category were present here, as the sheer numbers were just too much for them to all fit into the hall.
Take the A-rankers for example, the number of A-rank adventurers based in Bultom Dungeon City who participated in the crisis was far too much for all of them to be present here for this celebration, so only the tops were selected, and even so, they were still over a hundred in number.
It might sound like much, but compared to the tens of thousands of C and B rank adventurers, the A-rankers were small in comparison.
Starting from the lowest-ranked rewards, these went to the B-rank adventurers and so High ranked Knights that distinguished themselves over the course of the Crisis.
The adventurers gained Honorary Baronet titles, and the Knights, on the other hand, had their titles upgraded to Baron.
For so Knights who were already titled nobles, they were put in commanding positions of a newly created Knight Order that served Duke Cheverton directly.
Then moving on to the A and S rankers, besides their bountiful monetary rewards, they also gained Honorary Baron Titles, along with a few commissions for personal weapons, armour and artifacts to be crafted specially for them by the Royal Family's Alchemists, Court Mages and Blacksmiths.
For the A and S rankers who were of Great Western Empire nationality, they gained full nobility titles, and so of the S and A rankers who were planning to retire were granted territories to govern over.
Now then, there was a difference between Honorary and Complete nobility titles, and that was that Honorary titles only held less than half the legal and social privileges that the Complete ones granted to their holder.
They were mostly granted as a way to recognize unique individuals for their contributions to society and the Empire as a whole.
Lastly, these titles were not hereditary, aning that they could not be passed on to the children of the holders.
However, the normal Complete hereditary peerages ca with the full legal and social privileges and could be inherited by descendants.
Of course, the level of privileges differed between those who rely held the titles, those who held these titles along with Court Ranks (Palace Nobles), and those who held the titles along with land and feudal responsibilities.
In the Army departnt, many soldiers gained rank promotions, with a few of them skipping two ranks.
For starters, all the soldiers who participated automatically gained a single rank promotion and a few extra benefits.
The low-ranked enlisted soldiers who distinguished themselves on the battlefield were promoted even more, with Corporals becoming Staff Sergeants, Master Sergeants becoming Command Sergeant Majors and so on.
Warrant officers who were responsible for personnel managent, equipnt maintenance and other administrative and logistics positions also gained their own share of promotions based on how much rits they accumulated.
When it ca to the officers who controlled platoons, Companies and Battalions, the promotions were smaller in number.
Then again, this was not too surprising as the higher up one went in the ranking, the more rits one needed to be promoted.
Second & First Lieutenants and Captains were promoted, but starting from the Major rank, the promotions were no more than 10.
Lieutenant Colonel level promotions numbered even less, and there was only one promotion to the level of General, and it was to the lowest General rank which was Brigadier General.
After the military promotions were completed, then ca the awards for the main players in the crisis resolvent.
People like Heinr, Alie, and Sir Czac.
Joanna also took this as an opportunity to deliver the official rewards that had been prepared for Sir Czac and the other Senior Battle Mages.
Though so of the Senior mages who had never seen Joanna in 'work mode' were shocked for a few monts as they were no traces of her usual lethargic attitude.
However, she returned to normal a few seconds after she was done playing her part, and Evan could have sworn he heard a few senior mages betting on how long it would have taken her to do so.
Back to the main players, many were surprised when the Gravity Mage who took out the majority of the Eighth Finger's Liches, as well as wiped out huge portions of his army with her AOE spells, was not called out for any rewards.
Only those who were close to her like her party mbers and a few other A rankers, Evan who knew of her identity from the ga, and the higher nobility of the Empire, recognized the real reason.
Tisha herself was already high nobility from another country, just not one on the Alpha continent. Her father whom Luke referred to as 'Leoglor', was a Grand Duke in his ho country; that alone should speak volus of the Gravity Mage's lineage.
Of course, she did collect a higher amount of monetary rewards, as well as the free artifact/weapon creation.
For grandmasters like her, weapons strong enough to withstand their power weren't all that rare, but they were not common either.
Having one customised just for her was quite a sizable reward.
Next, the mbers of the Anomalies all received Honorary titles, Eliza included, which allowed many nobles who had gotten stumped in their search for her true origins to infer that she was not from the Great Western Empire and was actually a foreigner.
As for the monarch who was presiding over the ceremony and granting these rewards, he had a hard ti keeping his poker face as he granted Honorary titles to two beings who were part of the invading force of a thousand years ago.
Then again, Pride and Greed's demon identities were not exactly public knowledge so he had to at least show that their high contributions were not going unrewarded.
For people like Duke Charles and Duke Luke, the two of them were already at the highest level of nobility possible for non-royals, and they already had the highest levels of Authority in their respective sections of the Empire's Administration.
Ralphie, on the other hand, had his Viscount title upgraded to that of a Count, effectively becoming the 'most powerful' Count of the Empire.
Although this had not been stated before, Ralphie had always had a Viscount title, one that was a subsidiary peerage under the Thompson Marquisate.
Since he was the second son and was not going to be inheriting the Marquis title, he was given a subsidiary peerage title which was now upgraded to a completely new hereditary Peerage directly under the Empire.
And finally, it was Evan's turn.
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