After shaking hands with Heimerdinger, the other councilors came forward one after another, all smiling as they shook Luke's hand and introduced themselves.
"Greetings, Your Highness. I am Mel Medarda, one of Piltover's council members."
"I am Vaido Violante."
"Costin Davan."
"Harken Or."
"Arianna Donnar."
"Cassandra Kiramman."
After shaking hands with the last female councilor, the one who appeared before Luke was a man sitting in a wheelchair. His face was pale, and a maid pushed his wheelchair forward from behind.
He gave Luke an apologetic smile and extended his hand. "Forgive me for being unable to rise and bow, Your Highness. I am Stevan Ferros, also one of Piltover's council members. It is a pleasure to meet you."
"No problem. A pleasure to meet you."
Luke smiled slightly and reached out to shake his hand.
As for the rest, no one else stepped forward. They knew they did not yet have the qualifications to shake Luke's hand on an occasion like this, so they only watched from the side.
After Luke released Stevan's hand, Heimerdinger stepped forward and asked, "May I ask whether Your Highness is satisfied with Piltover's welcoming ceremony?"
"Very satisfied. Thank you, everyone in Piltover, for your effort." Luke smiled, his every movement carrying a gentle, composed elegance. He did not give off the arrogance or pressure people imagined from someone born into royalty who had killed countless people. He looked more like a noble boy from next door, radiating an approachable charm.
However, the personal guard soldiers following behind him were another story. Each of them wore gleaming silver armor that faintly reflected the sunlight, allowing the discerning Piltovans to recognize at a glance that this armor came from Demacia's forging craftsmanship, and that its quality was extremely high.
They marched in perfect formation, following steadily from behind. Just standing there, the pressure they gave off was already overwhelming. People could faintly smell the scent of men who had fought and killed on the battlefield.
Some time ago, a Noxian general had come here, and the soldiers she had led into the city had given people the same feeling.
But in comparison, the Demacian soldiers clearly had an even stronger presence.
And once compared to their own Enforcers, it was obvious at a glance who was stronger and who was weaker.
Then, imagining a hundred thousand soldiers like this appearing before them, every Piltovan could not help having a flicker of shock pass through their eyes.
"Speaking of which, I heard about Piltover a long time ago and have always looked forward to seeing it."
Luke spoke with a smile as he walked forward.
The people ahead consciously opened a path. First, they stood on both sides, then followed beside and behind Luke according to their status.
"I believe every Piltovan has also long heard of the Kingdom of Demacia." Heimerdinger exchanged polite words and said, "Unfortunately, before this, our two sides had very little contact."
Or rather, it was not merely little.
Demacia was an extremely self-reliant nation, even to the point of stubbornness.
In terms of diplomacy, aside from its allies, it almost never interacted with the outside world.
Not to mention that one side was in the far west of the largest continent, and the other was in the far east. They basically had nothing to do with each other.
The only form of exchange had been travelers from both sides bringing news of one another.
"There will be plenty of chances in the future. After all, we just moved over not long ago, so from now on, we're neighbors too."
Luke laughed.
But those words were not funny at all. Piltover's neighbor had previously been Noxus.
Until Demacia had fought eastward and occupied the long stretch of the Argent Mountains, drastically shortening its distance from Piltover.
Looked at this way, they had indeed become neighbors.
Hearing this, some Piltovans felt their hearts sink. There had already been a tiger circling overhead, eyeing them greedily, and now a lion had been added.
Fortunately, at least in terms of reputation, Demacia was still much better than Noxus.
"This time, on behalf of Demacia, I also brought many specialties to gift Piltover. Consider them a gift to open our friendly relationship."
Luke spoke again.
Heimerdinger smiled. "Thank you for your nation's kindness. We will gladly accept them, then. A return gift will be sent in due time. But before that, I have prepared a banquet. If we arrive too late, the food will get cold."
Luke said, "Please lead the way."
And so, after passing through the long corridor of the Sun Gates, the group directly arrived in Piltover's upper district.
In order to welcome Luke's arrival, a route had been specially separated on the street, with ordinary people forbidden from crossing it. On both sides stood Piltover Enforcers, each holding a rifle and standing perfectly straight.
All around them were pairs of curious eyes. As Luke appeared, the sounds of discussion slowly rose, followed by applause and repeated words of welcome.
"So that's Demacia's second prince?"
"Hiss… he's completely different from what I imagined."
"He's kind of cool."
"This is our first time having diplomacy with Demacia, right?"
"Those soldiers have such a powerful presence."
"Those girls are all so pretty."
The citizens discussed among themselves, their curious gazes moving back and forth through the group.
At this moment, Luke and the others were also looking around Piltover's upper district, their eyes full of novelty.
Because it was located by a mountainside harbor, Piltover's buildings were constructed from high to low. At a glance, they stretched endlessly, gathered in clusters, and already formed a large city.
Near the sea at the foot of the Sun Gates, there were clusters of buildings densely packed together.
And where everyone currently stood was the highest area, which could also be considered a relatively wealthy place. The surrounding buildings were all high-end and imposing, with exquisite exteriors. Several tall towers stood among them, and everywhere carried Piltover's sense of elegance.
There was also a unique mechanical feel. In the distance, several Enforcers could be seen riding strange-looking mounts, moving along while maintaining order.
Above them, several airships floated slowly through the sky.
Everyone had already noticed those airships when they arrived, and they could not help sighing that Piltover's technology was indeed at the forefront.
At least Demacia currently had not begun using airships. But now that they had seen them, it probably would not be long before they did.
At the top of a towering clock tower, the hands of the clock moved slowly. And at the very top, a slender figure sat cross-legged, watching the welcomed Demacian group through a telescope.
She had blue-green hair tied into two long braids that fell casually around her.
At this moment, she was adjusting the telescope's focus. Only after the face of the person walking at the very front appeared as clearly as possible in the two lenses did she click her tongue.
"So that's the prince. He's actually pretty good-looking."
She looked him over twice, then moved the telescope and began looking at the people nearby.
When she saw those upper-city councilors constantly following beside him, their faces full of flattering smiles, she could not help clicking her tongue again and found it especially funny.
These guys usually looked down their noses at everyone, but now that someone of even higher status had arrived, they were practically tripping over themselves to kiss up to him.
She pursed her lips. Her gaze returned to the prince's face again. She still felt that this face was more pleasant to look at.
Suddenly, an interesting idea popped into her mind. If she kidnapped this guy, how anxious would the people of Piltover get?
All of a sudden, she saw the prince slightly raise his head. His eyes seemed to look in her direction, and there was a faint, almost imperceptible smile at the corner of his mouth.
Her heart instantly jumped, and she immediately lowered the telescope, revealing a startled and suspicious expression. Her heartbeat had sped up in that brief instant.
"He looked this way?"
The girl's face was full of uncertainty, but that casual glance from just now kept giving her that illusion.
She lifted the telescope again and looked over once more. The prince was already smiling and chatting with the people around him.
It was as though that earlier glance had never happened.
"Maybe I didn't sleep well last night. At this distance, how could he possibly notice me?"
The girl muttered to herself a couple of times, but she did not continue watching.
Thinking of how jumpy and suspicious she had just been, she decided to take a nap immediately.
Once she decided to lie down, she lay down at once, flat as a corpse, with both hands placed over her chest, closing her eyes in perfect peace.
Then the moment she closed her eyes, that scene from just now flashed before her again.
With a whoosh, she shot upright again and thought defiantly, No. I need to test this guy. There's a problem. There's definitely a problem.
Her intuition was much sharper than other people's, and she kept feeling that the glance just now had been aimed right at her.
So she stood up and leaped forward, skillfully landing on the roof of another lower building. Then she shifted back and forth between the rooftops. She had no protective gear at all, yet she was unbelievably bold.
In the blink of an eye, she had landed in an alley ahead of them, then began "staring" at that prince with her eyes.
However, after quite a while, he still did not look over again, so she began thinking.
At that moment, she saw a pile of discarded papers stacked messily nearby and immediately came up with a plan.
Without hesitation, she picked up a sheet and began folding it. In just a few seconds, a carefully made paper airplane was completed.
Then she confirmed the wind direction.
No problem. It was a tailwind.
After that, she breathed onto the tip, aimed slightly, and threw it out with a flick of her wrist.
Though it was only a paper airplane, with the tailwind, it flew far from slowly. Perhaps because of a special folding technique, it seemed to have no resistance at all.
It flew out from one direction almost instantly, then in the blink of an eye, it had already passed over one person's head after another and appeared in front of Luke.
"Heh heh. I'm a paper airplane master!"
Seeing this, the blue-green-haired girl felt somewhat smug. She thought back to when she was little. Although she had been useless at everything else, when it came to paper airplanes, hers flew the fastest and the farthest.
They could practically fly from one district of Zaun to another. If there was wind, they could go even faster and farther.
At this moment, no one expected such a situation to occur, and most of their attention was focused on the conversation with Luke. By the time they reacted, it was already somewhat too late.
Sensing no danger, Luke merely tilted his head slightly and dodged it.
Then the paper airplane plunged straight into the unprepared Miss Crownguard's forehead like a suicide attack.
Lux caught the paper airplane with a blank look on her face. Then she glared unhappily at Luke in front of her, suspecting that this guy had dodged on purpose.
Compared with her displeasure, the surrounding people seemed to crash like a frozen machine. Everyone went numb in that instant.
Their hearts sank hard, and their expressions looked painfully strained.
Sweat immediately streamed down the back of Chief Enforcer Slap. He instantly rushed in the direction the paper airplane had come from while roaring angrily, "What are you people doing? Hurry up and find them! Arrest the person who threw this paper airplane!"
In an instant, all the Enforcers began moving, swarming toward the direction where the paper airplane had first appeared.
Before that, however, three figures had already darted out.
The fastest among them was Quinn.
The next one to rush out was Caitlyn. Her reaction was the second fastest. Almost instantly, she left the group, ran past Luke, leaped over the protective lines on both sides, and sprinted in that direction.
The third to react was a young man following in the second row, and he also chased after them at high speed.
The faces of the councilors beside Luke all changed at this moment. Some turned pale, some furious, and they had the awkward look of people who wanted to curse out loud but had no choice but to force it down in this situation.
Damn it. They had guarded against everything, but still failed to guard against this!
Although it was only a completely harmless paper airplane, the severity of the problem had already surpassed everything!
This represented that someone dared, on such a formal occasion, to openly attack Piltover's honored guest!
This was completely equivalent to slapping them in the face on the spot.
Even more terrifying was this. What if that paper airplane had been replaced with a bullet?
What if it had been replaced with any kind of assassination tool?
This not only proved the incompetence and poor security of Piltover's Enforcers, but also placed them in a dangerous position.
If this prince were to suffer even the slightest harm within Piltover's territory, or even face mortal danger, no one doubted that before long, Demacia's army would be at the city gates.
Thinking of that consequence, the councilors and nobles present felt their scalps go numb, both shocked and terrified.
In one brief instant, they had even imagined how Piltover would be recorded in the history books.
The first place destroyed by Demacia because of a paper airplane.
Damn it!
"Our deepest apologies, Your Highness! And Miss Crownguard!"
Mel reacted and hurriedly bowed in apology. "We will definitely give you an explanation for this matter!"
Heimerdinger also hurried to smooth things over from the side. "My apologies, Your Highness. This was our failure in supervision. We allowed so many civilians to come and go because our original intention was to show Piltover's friendliness, welcome, and attitude. We never imagined something like this would happen."
If they could have predicted this in advance, they absolutely would not have announced the route this time and allowed so many people to come and watch.
This time, the original intention really had been to show Piltover's warm welcome. After all, if the guests arrived and saw only a handful of people welcoming them, what if they felt the scene was not grand enough?
Yet even he had not expected that on Luke's first day in Piltover, this kind of incident would happen.
There really was someone who would stir up trouble at a time like this.
While he spoke, the officials and Enforcers following beside them had already begun dispersing the nearby citizens.
This sudden scene had also caught the citizens off guard.
However, before they were dispersed, they saw Luke casually wave his hand and smile. "There's no need to be so nervous. I'm sure it was only someone's prank. We have already felt Piltover's welcome."
Lux also immediately said, "That's right, that's right. I'm fine too. There's no need to disperse everyone."
If she had not been following this guy, she naturally would have been able to stop that paper airplane.
But precisely because she had been following him, she had been completely unprepared.
And in the end, that jerk had even dodged on purpose.
Now that such a huge commotion had broken out, she felt as if all of Piltover had entered a state of high tension. The atmosphere changed all at once.
As for whether this would be pursued or not, it all depended on a single thought from Luke.
Everyone carefully observed his expression. After discovering that he truly did not seem angry, their hearts relaxed slightly, but they still did not dare completely let go of the worry hanging over them.
Although the citizens were no longer dispersed, the next stretch of road was still exceptionally tense and cautious. Everyone was more uncomfortable than the last, all working hard to find light topics to smooth things over.
They hoped they could quickly skip past what had just happened.
Fortunately, they discovered that this prince truly did not care. He continued chatting with them with an approachable smile.
As Luke's strength had grown, his sixth sense had also become ridiculously powerful.
But with so many gazes around him, he naturally could not sense anything with special precision.
It was just that a gaze from far away had given him an open, blatant feeling, like a robber spotting a wealthy merchant.
That was why he had raised his head and looked into the distance. Then, on the top of a clock tower, he had seen a blue-green-haired girl.
If nothing unexpected had happened, that paper airplane just now had been thrown by her.
If there was no malice, then Luke was too lazy to care or pursue it.
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