Chapter 245 - Clues and...

While searching around in the city's taverns, Mercenary and Merchant Guilds, as well as listening from the gossips from the market, Lucia and Serilla were able to roughly find the whereabouts of the human invaders.

Of course, other than the information from the Merchant and Mercenary guilds, the rest weren't credible since they were only rumors and hearsay, but at least they had a general idea of where the humans operated and could just search for them in those areas.

"So, they're mostly in the northern area's Midgard-Urrugdrasil border..."

"Well, that's what we can deduce from combining all the credible info from the merchant and mercenary guilds and the rumors from the streets. We should at least start looking there," Lucia said in reply.

Cecil nodded and immediately decided, "Alright, we'll start from the north and just comb down the entire border and see if we can meet up with them. Our time limit is the same, one month. If we can't find them, then we'll head over to Midgard on Yuna."

"Okay, but honestly Cel, we could just take the easy way out and go on Yuna..."

Cecil chuckled at her response and said in reply.

"Lulu, where's the adventure in that? Shouldn't we enjoy our trip around the world? I mean, it's such a big place, just moving around without appreciating the scenery is kinda boring, don't ya think?"

"Hmph, says the idiot who spent most of his time single-mindedly training during our earliest journeys!"

"Ahaha~ don't sweat the small stuff, Lulu~"

"Hmm... well, whatever. I'd rather enjoy our time together anyways~"

"Yup~ darling said we would be making new memories together, right~?"

The two girls grabbed onto either sides of Cecil and hugged him. The boy only groaned, but didn't do anything.

Yuna stood up, picked up Silver and walked to the bedroom area. "I'll be hitting the hay now, good night everyone."

"Mhm."

"G'night~"

"Good night, Yuna."

They stayed together like that for a while before Cecil began hearing the calm breathing from the two girls.

"Oi...you two better not have fallen asleep."

"..."

"...zzz..."

With the girls now asleep, Cecil sighed helplessly and used Nature's Shift. They were now sleeping on his clone's shoulders. He silently picked up Serilla and brought her over to her bedroom.

Yuna's was on the left and Cecil could see that she was already asleep with Silver napping silently next to her.

He smiled gently and carefully placed Serilla down on the bed. He quickly made his way back to Lucia and brought her into the room as well. It was a good thing that they were fast asleep otherwise they would have kicked up a fuss and forced Cecil to sleep together with them.

He turned off the lights and went back to the central area alone. With a snap of his finger the center partition was engulfed in darkness. Only the starlight shining in from the doors' windows at the front and back of the wagon illuminated the interior.

Looking up at the clear night sky through the window, Cecil could see the multitudes of beautifully sparkling stars. He activated the carriage's barrier and early warning system arrays before pulling out his blanket and pillow from his ring and lied down on the couch.

He wanted to read something from his magic tome, but he decided against it. With the calm of the night accompanying him, Cecil slowly fell asleep.

******

Push back time and let's head over to the Midgard Continent.

"My lady~ we are you going?" A frivolous voice called out.

A woman in her early twenties only looked back coldly at the young man who called out to her. She couldn't help but release an annoyed breath when she saw the man walking up to her.

"Lady Fatima, where are you going?"

"To class, shouldn't Your Highness be heading off to class as well?"

"Ahaha~ it matters not if I am late, I would like to accompany milady to her class. May I?"

"...do as you wish, I can't actually stop you since you're the Prince of this...country."

"Hmhm~ then I shall do as I wish!"

The young woman briskly walked away and moved through the large stone corridors of the victorian-styled building she was currently in. This young lady was Fatima Silvaria, Cecil's eldest sister, and she was currently in an Alternian Human Kingdom.

During the first expedition out of the Sky-Piercing Mountains, the Silvarian expeditionary force was able to successfully establish contact with humans from Alterna.

Of course there were some altercations at first due to the inability to communicate between the two human species, but Fatima was able to quickly learn the Alternian humans' language after studying it for over a month. Of course at that time, she still wasn't fluent in it, but she could use it to a suitable degree where communication was possible.

After being able to communicate with them, Fatima finally found out that she was currently in a small village called Skriar, the only village that was located close to the mountains which surrounded her family's city, Silvaria City.

She also learned that the area where her family was currently in was called the no-man's land and the encircling mountain range that closed off the area from the rest of the continent was called the Sky-Piercing Mountain Range.

After sometime, Fatima and a couple of other Earthlings were able to finally speak the language fluently. The expeditionary force also periodically brought goods to the village to trade for this world's currency and other things.

It wasn't long before an entourage from the village's reigning power came for an inspection. The ruling power had received a report from some merchants that frequented the village regarding the strange humans who had suddenly appeared and began conducting trade with the villagers.

When the Kingdom's entourage entered the village, Fatima immediately found out from the people she placed to monitor the village's surroundings of monsters.

During the first couple of months, they not only conducted trade and interacted with the villagers, but were also discretely protecting them from any nearby monsters. Sometimes, even Fatima herself would head out.

The Kingdom's entourage was headed by the Kingdom's 3rd Prince, it was a little unexpected for Fatima since she couldn't believe how backwards the society was in Alterna, it adopted a ruling system that came from the feudal age where Kingdom's and Empire's reigned, but this fact ultimately proved to her that she and her family was indeed sent to a place that was not Earth.

The village elder had her meet up with the Kingdom's Prince and from the Prince she found out that the Kingdom she was in was called the Regulus Kingdom.

The Third Prince, whose name was Rowan, was also a lad who was at the same age as her and unlike what she had first thought when she heard something about a Prince; he wasn't haughty or pompous.

Prince Rowan interacted amiably with Fatima and didn't overstep any boundaries or look down on her for being a woman. Rowan didn't have any need to since he could see the powerful people that were following the young lady.

All the people that followed Fatima on the expedition to the outside world were naturally the most powerful people from Silvaria City.

She didn't disclose anything about where she was from, but only said that she came from a faraway country and got lost during their travels. With their belongings gone missing, she didn't have a map and couldn't find her bearings.

Rowan didn't believe it and wanted to test her so he brought out a map of Alterna and asked where she was from. Fatima was a perceptive person so she naturally knew that the prince was trying to probe her out. She took a quick glance of the map and randomly pointed out to an island just off the coast of Midgard's western area.

The large island and the surrounding smaller ones were marked as the Bertrian Island Nation. From Fatima's poker face, the prince couldn't determine whether she was telling the truth or not. Naturally, the prince only shrugged it off and believed her story of being attacked by monsters and losing their possessions.

This part was the most suspicious because the Prince could discern the power of the people following Fatima. They were strong, and no B-C ranked monsters would pose a problem to their group. But since he couldn't find the truth and observed that Fatima and her group didn't seem to hold any malicious intentions towards his kingdom, he decided to place a minimal amount of trust in the young woman.

The Prince went back after and would periodically come back to the village every other week. From what Fatima could see, the prince had somehow grown fond of her. Fatima was a beautiful young woman, so it wasn't that much of a surprise.

In reality, what attracted Prince Rowan to her was the way she carried herself. Fatima exuded an aura of nobility that seemed to be ingrained deep into her bones and this caused Rowan to be curious about her.

He was also surprised at how powerful she was in battle. The village had one day been besieged by a monster wave that was coming from the mountains. Thankfully, it was on a day when the prince had come to visit the village.

He had brought his personal Knight Order with him as well as some adventurer parties, but they were in for a shock when Fatima mobilized her forces and swept through the monster wave like it was nothing.

The most important fact was that they didn't use any magic and only relied on their unique weapons, fists, and legs to sweep through the monster wave.

A couple of days after the event, the Prince couldn't help but ask why Fatima and her people didn't use any magic while fighting. Inwardly, the girl was shocked when she heard about the existence of magic and mana from Rowan.

Fatima didn't let it show, but she needed to find out more about this 'magic'. Apparently it wasn't those magic tricks from Earth, but those things from the fantasy books that Gabriel was so fond of reading.

She only gave a perfunctory reply and did not let her shock leak out. However, what the prince said next did cause her to express the shock she was trying to reel in. Rowan had invited Fatima to his Kingdom as a guest.

His excuse was that he wanted to reward Fatima for protecting the village and repelling the monster wave. Fatima didn't see any reason to refuse so she agreed.

From there she was able to meet with the Kingdom's royalty. It was all good at first until she met the Kingdom's 2nd Prince. From the start of their meeting, the bastard introduced himself with the intention to bed her and this caused her to immediately snap. Royalty or not, she was a proud woman and a dumb fool like this needed to be taught a very, very bitter lesson.

After interacting with Fatima for so long, Rowan could naturally pick up the subtle nuances that Fatima would express from time to time. She was normally cold and poker-faced, but his brother's thoughtless words had clearly enraged her.

Before Fatima could do anything, Rowan had stepped forward to berate his brother and announce that Fatima was his beloved, which of course earned him a frighteningly cold and hostile glare from the young lady.

After a lengthy amount of explanations and apologies, Fatima was able to forgive Rowan for doing something unnecessary, but she also had to thank him because if he hadn't done what he did, there would have been an additional eunuch present inside of the kingdom's castle.

So after a couple of months staying in the capital city of Regulus, Regalia, Fatima enrolled in the kingdom's most prestigious magic academy to learn about magic. Since Fatima looked rather young for her age, she could still barely pass off as a high school girl, if you cut out the mature and cold aura surrounding her character.

It had to be mentioned that the annoying 2nd prince had followed after her, trying to do his best to court her despite knowing that she was his brother's 'fiancé'.