Chapter 102. Solis Novum

The atmosphere inside the room turned tense to the extent that Crystal shivered a bit, grasping both Kaori’s and mine’s hand tightly as the three of us looked at Aurora while I replied in a mocking tone, “Do you think this stay-at-home would offend someone powerful?” causing the silence inside the room to intensify before she suddenly released a loud chuckle.

“Right! I forgot about that… how could this disciple of mine who has never left the city suddenly offend someone, right?” she looked at me with a mocking and threatening smile that brought shivers onto my spine as I nodded frivolously before she showed her hand towards Estelle who handed her a brown envelope.

After taking the envelope, she soon opened it before taking out a few papers as she handed it to me with a smile before returning back to her serious expression as she spoke, “While we are talking about someone who hasn’t left the city, the Queenshelm has decided for you to leave for another city within this month or next month…”

“The elders have determined that staying in this city will only hinder your growth as the only heir of the Queenshelm, not to mention, we have also received intel about a certain high-ranking criminal organization escaping from the hands of the authorities of another kingdom. According to several witnesses, they found traces of those criminals in the city.”

I took the document and looked at it for a few moments, staring at each piece of information while digesting the other information she explained. The document was basically a household registry towards another city which was the Riverside City which if the memory inside of me is still correct, should be one of the most peaceful cities in the entire Solis VR game.

“Isn’t it ironic that I am being transferred to another city because my growth is being hindered by staying here yet I am also being transferred to one of the safest cities here?” I looked at her with a smile.

“We are indeed transferring you to one of the safest cities because we also cannot afford the risk of throwing our only heir to a dangerous place but don’t take the safeness of the city for granted though because the high-ranking criminal organization could change that drastically,” she replied.

Her words were indeed correct. If there is a high-ranking criminal organization hiding inside the kingdom or this city, then there would definitely be a few other groups that would move a different path from the others which means the chances of the ‘safest’ city becoming dangerous is high.

“I understand but I can’t accept the transfer right now,” I answered.

“Why won’t you accept?” she tilted her head with a frown.

Curling my lips upwards, I looked at Crystal who was sitting beside me with a worried look on her face, holding her hand tightly as I looked back at Aurora before replying, “It’s because I don’t want to burden the children… especially Flora who finally found people she could open her heart to, it is too early for her to separate with them.”

“And so?” she asked, “What is your final decision?”

“We will continue to stay here until Flora is ready to move out, that is my final decision. In the meantime, I am also willing to assist in any part in the battle against the criminal organization since I also want to give the children of this city a safe environment to grow and remember…” I answered before her frown vanished as she heaved a sigh.

“I understand but do remember that neither I nor the elders would accept you staying in this city for eternity. I won’t force you to move for now but don’t expect the decision to stay the same in the future. It is a tradition for us to see the world around us and to not narrow ourselves inside an isolated space of comfort…” she said before standing up with a stretch.

She then looked at Kaori with a smile, “Well… not that I have to worry about you having a hard time in life especially with that girl over there by your side. After seeing her in person, I can now see why she is someone who His Majesty even is afraid of… simply the aura she releases is enough to pressure us.”

I was a bit surprised and looked at Kaori at every angle but couldn’t sense any aura on her which made me confused as Kaori giggled at me together with Aurora who was laughing at me causing me to become even more confused as Kaori smiled.

“It’s impossible for you to feel the aura since I made it impossible for you to sense it unless I explicitly tell it to erase the exception but then I would be more afraid whether you can take the aura head-on with your current state… do you want to try?”

“Err… is it fine if I can experience it for at least a second?” I asked before she nodded as she looked at Crystal with a smile, patting her head before releasing her hand as she looked at me with a bright and warm smile.

“Are you ready?” she asked before I nodded as her eyes turned red.

In an instant, a super heavy blast of force exploded from above of me knocking me straight to the floor as the force vanished soon after. It felt like I was hit by a nuclear warhead from behind, my heartbeat rose in that instant.

“Are you okay?” Kaori and Crystal both kneeled beside me with worried expressions as I looked at them with a nod before Kaori grabbed my shoulder, picking me up as I was thrown back to the sofa.

“How do you even manage to sustain against that force…” I looked at Aurora and asked.

“It’s because I am expending a lot of mana per second to alleviate the force, it’s to the extent that I would have run out of mana within the first ten seconds of meeting each other had I not learned a faster and passive method of regenerating mana…” Aurora answered.

“How about Mana and the others, do they also feel the same force?” I turned my attention towards Kaori and asked before she shook her head.

“They are also within the exception zone but that white-haired girl on your house… Leisha or something has once experienced a third of the force which was basically the same one as I performed on you…” she replied while averting her gaze.

I was utterly speechless over her response, that amount of force was still a third of her aura?! Wouldn’t I be crushed to death if she had released her entire aura on me?! Just imagining that causes shivers onto my spine.

“Kaori is a devil, after all…” I looked at her trembling before a sudden cough came from the side as Aurora stood there with a wry smile.

“The two of you should take your flirting outside… or do you have something else to report to me?” Aurora looked at us with a wry smile.

“Who is flirting… right, I am also reporting back to the Guild to prepare for more quests to take since my muscles have probably become fats at this point…” I said before she nodded.

“Tell me when you reach Rank S – Gold because I will let you see the elders at that point, it shouldn’t be long before you reach that rank right?” she looked at me with a smile.

“Do you expect me to be the same as Leisha who can speed run through the ranks like a demon?!” I screamed at her before she tilted her head to the side confused.

“You can’t?” she asked.

“I can!” I answered in a loud voice before she nodded.

“That’s the spirit! Now then, work hard because I will call you here again in a month from now to see whether you are ready to move to the next city and also to see how much progress you have made on your guild rank,” she said.

“Alright,” I said before standing up as Kaori plucked Crystal from the sofa, the little girl was listening to our conversation without closing her eyes once. This girl was a complete contrast to Flora who would fall asleep a second into the conversation.

“Let’s head back now or do you have somewhere you want to look at first?” I asked.

“I was thinking about buying some jewelry for Crystal and enchanting them with a spell to assist with her growth since it seems like the Transfer Spell was barely enough to bring her health to a stable point…” she said while looking at Crystal as we reached the door where a maid stood on wait, opening the door for us.

Enchantment is not something odd in this world especially in Solis VR where every player would enchant almost every day. It is something that should be added to equipment but here in this world, it seems like enchanting takes a while which is why only the weapons are enchanted for the most part.

“Then how about we purchase some jewelry over at a shop in this district, there should be some high-quality jewelry that uses superconducting materials here right?” I suggested while walking towards the gate.

“Mhm… a high-quality jewelry would be nice for enchantment, maybe a ring-type would be nice but then again, she is still growing which is why I’ll set out for a bracelet instead since it will expand as she grows for now,” she replied.

After reaching the gate, another maid soon opened it for us together with a group of maids as they took a bow synchronously before saying, “Please take care, future madam!” as I looked at them and nodded with a smile before leaving the premise together with Kaori, walking down the streets as we looked around for jewelry shops.

“How about we settle for that shop over there?” Kaori pointed towards a nearby building over the distance. It had a single golden sign decorated in gold that said: “Irinas’ Jewels” which was a cool-sounding name though the interesting part of the shop is not that but the simple look of the shop that didn’t blend well with the others.

It had a brick wall with a single glass pane, there was no luxurious gold stroking on the wall but rather it was only painted in red which made it different from the others that desperately wanted to cater towards the tastes of the rich.

“Let’s head there then…” I said before the three of us walked towards the shop, entering inside as bells from the door rang before a beautiful quartz white room became clear to us. It was a beautiful, clean room filled with glass displays that showed different beautiful jewelry.

There were all kinds of jewelry displayed from beautiful pearl necklaces to simple glossy black wristbands; white and gold rings to hand-stitched bracelets that look as if two Chinese dragons wrapping above each other.

“Welcome to Irinas’ Jewels! How may I help you?” a beautiful pink-haired lady called out from the counter with an apron on her front as she carried a magnifying glass, looking down towards a beautiful emerald ring on her counter.

“We would like to buy a bracelet,” Kaori responded while looking at Crystal whose eyes glimmered as she looked at the different pieces of jewelry. The pink-haired lady soon looked towards Kaori with a professional smile as she replied.

“For whom?”

In response, Kaori walked towards the counter and looked at Crystal with a smile, “For her…” before the lady nodded as she looked at Crystal’s wrist for a few seconds, nodding to herself a few times as she stood up from her seat.

“Please follow me, do you want the bracelet to be conductive towards mana or a simple decorative bracelet?” she asked while leading us to another showcase over to the left corner, walking behind the showcase as she looked at Kaori waiting for her response.

“Do you have one that has both qualities?” Kaori asked after a few seconds of staring at the showcase.

“Are you sure about that? We do have one, but it might cost a fortune…” the lady replied before Kaori looked at me as if asking for my opinion.

“How much would it cost?” I asked the lady.

“Around twenty gold coins…” the lady replied.

Twenty gold coins was indeed a fortune for many, it is enough to feed twenty families of five with three months’ worth of rice and chicken. Hearing the price, Crystal’s face immediately paled as she looked at Kaori and me shaking her head frivolously.

“I don’t want it…” she said earnestly.

“Why?” I asked before she shook her head more.

“I… am not worth it,” she answered which surprised both Kaori and me as the two of us looked at each other and smiled. If Flora was the light side of the coin, living in a luxurious and spoilt manner then Crystal would definitely be the dark side of the coin.

Crystal is the direct opposite to Flora in a sense, she understands the value of money more than Flora and is someone attentive to details though from what I can tell during our conversation with Aurora, she falls behind Flora in terms of intelligence.

The bad point about Flora was her gluttonous nature and the fact that she had lived in a spoiled manner over the past few weeks but in exchange for those two bad points, Flora is actually someone talented in terms of combat and intelligence.

She is smart and can learn battle techniques fast according to what I was told but she simply doesn’t take money seriously since she only thinks of them as something that can buy her food which technically is correct but yeah…

“Then do you have anything you like?” I inquired before she looked around for a few moments, panicking before pointing at a random bracelet nearby. It was a simple-looking bracelet that was like metal.

After seeing her pick, I looked at the lady who was smiling before she nodded, leading us towards the bracelet before taking it out from its showcase as she handed it to us for a closer look. Taking a closer look, the bracelet wasn’t actually that simple.

“This is interesting…” Kaori said before frowning her eyebrows.

The reason why the bracelet wasn’t that simple was because of the tiny engravings on it that couldn’t be seen until you look at it closely and by closely, I mean near point-blank distance. The engravings tell a story that made me interested as I looked at the lady and asked, “Do you know whose story is engraved onto here?”

“Of course, it is my late grandfather’s proudest creation which he calls novum solis which translates as the new sun because it tells the story of the late Sword Empress who vanished out of nowhere. He said that the bracelet speaks of the truth, but no one believes him which is why he decided to leave it for someone fated to find,” the lady smiled.

The late Sword Empress… wouldn’t that be Mana’s biological mother but then that doesn’t make sense since Mana’s biological mother as Mom had told me was a cautious person and was someone who would rather escape than tell her story to others.

“How can he be sure that the story being told on this bracelet is actually that of the late Sword Empress?” I looked at the bracelet and asked.

“According to him, it’s because other than him and a few of his best friends, no one knows the true story of the Sword Empress though as much as I want to believe him… I don’t really trust his words, it could be some old man’s rumblings which is why I decided to price the bracelet based on the complexity of the engravings,” the lady smiled wryly.

His words make me curious, especially since most of the engravings on the bracelet actually matched a lot of what Mom had told me. Mana’s mother is simply a mysterious person that almost no one understands… it’s hard to comprehend what is the truth or not.

“What is the name of your grandfather if you don’t mind me asking?” Kaori inquired.

“He isn’t someone that well-known, he calls him Agustino Yuriella IV, but Father calls him Luka which is apparently his real name, but he tends to refute those words and keeps calling himself Agustino Yuriella IV for some reason…” she replied.

“I see… I’ll buy this bracelet then, how much is it?” Kaori asked which surprised me.

“Are you sure? It’s the cheapest out of the bunch at one gold coin but you might get into issues with some people especially the historians since they don’t like other people going against their beliefs…” the lady asked before Kaori nodded.

“I’ll buy it, no worries…” Kaori answered before taking out a gold coin and handing it to the lady who looked at us and sighed before taking the gold coin as she took out a piece of paper and wrote down a quick receipt for us.

After she finished writing down the receipt, she soon handed it to us as she said, “Thank you for your patronage then…” with a worried gaze as Kaori simply smiled at her before looking at me with a nod as we walked out from the shop with a confused Crystal.

After exiting the shop, the three of us soon walked towards a tiny narrow alleyway as Kaori looked at me with a serious expression, “Do you know who Agustino Yuriella IV is?” before I shook my head as she sighed with a smile.

“Agustino Yuriella IV is the former King of one of the strongest kingdoms recorded in the entire continent according to what mother-in—your mother told me… it is said that he vanished without a trace and people somehow forgot about him in a day…” Kaori replied.

“Then… that would mean her grandfather should be the former king?!” I said before she nodded with a frown.

“It’s weird though, why would someone that is a former King of a large kingdom suddenly vanish and why would thousands of people forget about him in a day…” Kaori said before looking at the bracelet with a frown, “It’s the reason why I decided to buy the bracelet since it should contain the truth of the matter…”

“I see… if it is a bracelet made by a King of one of the strongest kingdoms recorded then the bracelet should also have some special enchantments right?” I asked before she nodded.

“We’ll talk about that late—” she said before all of a sudden, my footing suddenly became slippery causing me to fall towards Kaori who reacted quickly, grabbing me with her other hand as she held Crystal tightly before I fell into her embrace as our lips touched one another.