Knight's oath?
Hearing this word, Ed finally understood the other party's intention:
Lyria's inheritance law is rather special. About 150 years ago, in order to bypass the frail Edward and pass the throne to her talented eldest daughter, Princess Anne, Queen Caroline specifically legislated within the family to stipulate that women and men have the same order of succession.
Although this inheritance law was not enforced on all feudal nobles at the time, many nobles adopted the same gender-equal inheritance law in order to swear their loyalty to the royal family, which continues to this day, including the Oakland family.
In other words, Catalina is actually ahead of Roderick in the line of succession, which is something the Oakland family does not want to see.
For a long time, due to physical reasons, she had never been cultivated as an heir. Roderick had been carefully cultivated over the years, and his personality and experience were obviously more suitable.
For the Oakland family, the safest way is to have Catalina swear a knighthood oath and voluntarily give up her inheritance rights:
As a derivative of the church's knighthood system, the knight's oath requires the swearer to give up the inheritance rights of the original family, but allows the knight to choose his own new surname and establish a branch family in the future.
Based on the existence of this rule, nobles will send incompetent heirs or other heirs who threaten the heirs to the knights, and canonize them as knights to resolve inheritance disputes. Therefore, many knights are also called "secondary sons" .
Judging from Ed's understanding of Catalina, she is obviously not interested in inheritance rights. Rather than power and status, she prefers to immerse herself in the fantasy of knight novels.
If she is willing to become a knight and voluntarily give up her inheritance rights, the Oakland family will obviously be happy to see it happen. This would not go against her will, nor would it lead to family inheritance disputes.
But now, there are others who don't want Catalina to give up her inheritance rights?
Ed cleared his throat, straightened his body slightly and said:
"Interfering in the internal affairs of the Oakland family is not a trivial matter. Once discovered, it is tantamount to declaring war on the Oakland family."
He did not refuse directly, but planned to listen to the other party's plan first. If we know more details, Catalina will be safer.
"The White Oak family plans to find a respected old knight at her birthday dinner and canonize her in public. I found out about their top candidate - Sir Reed."
Hearing this, Ed nodded and motioned for the 'prince' to continue.
"This old gentleman is not a great person. It's just that he once served as a servant of the Silver Knight and has accumulated some qualifications and reputation. His own strength is only a third-level extraordinary person. Especially as he gets older, his strength may It’s still going to go down a lot.”
The man in black named 'Prince' spoke eloquently, revealing calmness from the inside out under the wooden mask:
"A small suggestion, he will stay at Shunfeng Hotel these days. You only need to find an opportunity to cause him a small accident within a few days before the dinner begins, and the canonization ceremony at the dinner will be interrupted. And Even if you make a mistake, you won't directly offend the Oakland family. It shouldn't be difficult for you, right?"
Shunfeng Hotel... Ed thought about the name of this store carefully. This is a relatively remote hotel in the central district with simple conditions. It is mainly used for employees who come to Yinwu City on business trips or small traders who are doing business to stay overnight.
Judging from this, the life of this old knight is somewhat simple...
Seeing that Ed hadn't made an offer yet, the man in black made an offer first:
"Three faceless iron coins, what do you think?"
Three... are enough to pay for the wasp drone blueprints, and there is still some surplus, but...
Ed held his breath and remained silent.
"Four." Seeing that Ed still didn't speak, the other party started to raise the price.
Even if he doesn't accept the business, the other party will probably hire someone else, and he doesn't know what trouble will happen by then. Instead of doing this, it's better to do it yourself...
With the red-eyed spider, I can take action without revealing my identity. Theoretically, the mission could be accomplished by inflicting some minor injuries on the old knight so that he would not be able to attend the dinner decently. Ed weighed it over and over in his mind.
However, the projection state cannot offset the injury. Facing a Level 3 Extraordinary, did he really have a chance of winning even though he was missing a leg?
"This is not about money, the Oakland family..." Ed finally said.
"Five pieces, I can only increase the price to this point. Whatever you do, as long as you can complete the task and Catalina cannot be harmed, the money will be yours." The other party stretched out an iron glove from his black robe. He said decisively.
There is no doubt that as long as Ed refuses, the 'prince' will immediately get up and leave.
"Okay, deal." He nodded readily.
Although a large part of the reason why Ed agreed was because the other party gave him too much, it was also related to another detail exposed by the other party - no matter whether the employer was the man in black in front of him or not, he seemed to be right. Catalina is concerned.
Therefore, the employer is most likely not an enemy of the Oakland family, but just wants to gain some benefits from the Oakland family.
For Catalina, letting him take action can minimize the risk. For Ed himself, five faceless iron coins were a big deal. Not only did he solve his urgent need, but he could also save a small amount of money for future needs.
"Then, I'm waiting for your good news."
The prince stood up, shook hands with Ed with black iron gloves, and then turned and left the room.
In order to avoid bumping into each other awkwardly in the corridor, Ed sat in the room for a while and made sure that the other person was gone before leaving the auction house and returning to the palace of thought.
Sylvie was currently sitting at the desk in the room of the Hall of Thought, with her hands on the strange machine, as if she was playing a non-existent piano.
"Let me guess, is our great secret keeper inflated again?" Suddenly she stopped, turned sideways and asked with a half-smile.
"How is that possible? A newly transformed Level 2 Extraordinary goes to challenge a Level 3 Extraordinary single-handedly, unless I'm crazy."
Ed's face was as dark as water, as if he had completely forgotten that he had done something similar a month ago. Of course, at that time, his understanding of Extraordinaries was not clear enough, and he did not expect that high-level Extraordinaries could move so fast.
"In that case, why do you dare to accept this commission, my dear good sir?"
She blinked her bright ruby eyes and asked slowly, as if she was waiting for Ed to tell him the reason.
"Probably because... I am the Great Keeper of Secrets."
Having said this, Ed curled his lips and took out the diary from the drawer that could communicate with Catalina.
