True Love's Seventh kiss: Part 2 Dungeon Break

Ch.10 Noble Popularity

Two weeks passed while Marion recovered. He spent a lot of time with his father and mother after the first couple days of recovering from the shock of his marriage talks. So far that was all they were though. For now, it was just a formality to have marriage talks and he wasn't required to personally get to know them or any of the others that were applying for his affection.

Just the sheer number of baron's daughters, and knight's daughters who had sent him letters and invitations boggled him since he had never been so... desired.

As a count he was well aware of all the families above him, but he hadn't quite grasped all the nobles below him. Or even the rich commoners below him of great importance. Luckily, his mom said that was normal, and implied that Marion really needed to get his head wrapped around how important his station was as a future count.

The capitol was to the east of Cliffgard and most of the habitable land between the two was technically within the capital's governance, but it was managed by lesser lords like barons who made achievements in wars or were half managed estates for higher ranked nobles so they could stay near the capital and even had fancy mansions in the capitol to show off wealth.

However, Southwest of Cliffgard was more territory owned by the empire. If you went far enough there was the territory of the Marquis of Redstone who occupied a territory that bordered the wildlands populated by tribes of nomads, bandits, and monsters. It was largely untamed and unclaimed due to the pillar-like mountain ranges that made the land hard to travel and even harder to cultivate. Between the Marquis's territory and Cliffgard were several smaller settlements and frontier towns managed by knights or barons.

Those further out lands were less fought over but it was only because of the amicable relationship they had with each other and the surrounding lords. Like Novak Cliffgard who acted as a significant buffer from the politics of the courts and an honest businessman. Much of the Cliffgard's food supply line was dependent on agreements with these lesser nobles, and they were dependent on Cliffgard and Redstone for security from bandits and odd wild boar or huge monster outbreak. Although the roaming Adventure guilds took care of much of the leg work for boars and goblins they weren't so numerous that they were all powerful.

These Barons and Knights were the ones who filled up most of the Cliffgard party and now that Marion had adequately wooed many of their impressionable daughters there was no shortage of love letters and humble gifts coming from them to Marion directly...even marriage talks with a Ducal daughter, the Goldbloom heiress, and rumors of a liaison with the Imperial Princess did not sway the tenacious women of the empire. This led to the nobles and noble daughters on the other sides of the Empire taking notice of his newfound instant popularity and also sent him a number of letters and invitations even if it was just to me the Empire's new bachelor.

And so, the second Marion stepped foot on the Dryad's Whisper he took a long deep breath of relief.

"Good to have you back, Captain." Herman saluted standing in line with a healthy Klayus and a severe-looking Chaunce.

"Good to be back, how's the Whisper?" Marion asked since he hadn't been able to help with the last month or so of finishing touches on the repair work.

"She's ship shape and ready to fly even better than before." Herman smiled as Henry walked on board with Marion's equipment. He didn't have a very large spatial storage yet and had to carry most of the stuff that won't spoil.

"Chaunce, I can feel you bursting a lugnut from over here, what is it you want to say?" Marion asked.

"Captain for the love of all things holy, my darling got a good upgrade after all is said and done... but please for the love of every holy god and relic in the world, don't break her." Chaunce said emotionally. "My heart can't take seeing her hauled off on rigs, again."