Chapter 262 - History Lesson

Winter had come and gone, soon Spring set in. A couple of months later, Cecil and his party finally arrived at the Tempest Kingdom's border.

Once they passed through the checkpoint, they would officially step into the lawless, neutral territory. Their next destination was the Machina Reggio Empire, which was said to be a superpower whose foundation was built entirely on Magi-Tech.

A scientifically advanced civilization, Cecil couldn't wait to see how it was like. He wondered if the cities and towns would look like Earth's towns and cities.

According to the information that Lucia and Serilla were able to get from Benedicia, the young lady boss of the Thousand Fiend Monster Ranch, the average merchant caravan that travelled between the Tempest Kingdom and the Machina Reggio Empire would take at least half a year to over a year to travel from either one of the 2 powers.

Of course, it wasn't like these neutral territories didn't have any powers managing them. In fact, there are small factions trying to gain control over some territories of the neutral areas. There are even some rumors of Transcendent level characters taking residence in these neutral areas.

Most of the Transcendents don't like being tied down to a superpower so they hide away in the neutral territories, cultivating in seclusion. They would only ever come out of hiding during the times of Void Sealing when all Transcendents were required to participate.

As for what that event was for, even Cecil didn't know what it was. He only heard about it one time from his foster mother, Anna, and even she didn't go into detail about that event so naturally he wouldn't know about it.

There was also another thing that Lucia and Serilla were able to get from Benedicia. They found out the reason behind the war that was scheduled to happen between the Regulus Kingdom and the Merkruz Principality.

It was just another petty case of revenge. It turns out that the current Royal Family of the Regulus Kingdom was not the founding family's main line successor. The current Royal Family was only in power during the past century. They did of course have Royal Blood dating back to the original Regulus Royal Family.

The founding family's main line was actually now the rulers of the Merkruz Principality. As for why this happened, it was because of a rebellion which happened over a century ago.

Back then the Regulus Kingdom wasn't all that harmonious and prosperous as it was now. Before, it was indeed prosperous, but that was only if you looked at the nobility's side of the picture. The rest of the kingdom's populace was poor and oppressed.

Poor in living conditions and oppressed by the greedy nobles. Of course, not all of the kingdom's aristocrats were like this and so, the nobles were divided into 2 opposing factions, the Supremacists and the Altruists.

One side leaned more towards enriching themselves while the other wanted to enrich not just themselves but every citizen in the kingdom.

Naturally, the royal family at the time was a little bit incompetent and couldn't keep either faction in control. The current King and the Crown Prince was also leaning more towards the Supremacist faction and this didn't sit well with one of the Kingdom's Princesses.

Seeing how her people were being oppressed every passing day, she sided herself with the Altruists and staged a coup, quickly taking down the current royal family at the time and banishing them out of the kingdom. As for the noble supremacists, they were all purged and executed for crimes such as human trafficking, slavery, murder, and other much more horrible crimes.

Not one supremacist noble was spared and with the loss of a significant number of nobles, the kingdom was plunged into dark times where things were very chaotic. The banished royal family used this chaos to their advantage and had set up a new kingdom in the nearby neutral territory which at present was now called the Merkruz Principality, named after the banished prince, Prince Merkruz Regulus.

The princess didn't change her kingdom's name and kept it as is. As for why the Regulus Kingdom let such a threat develop so close to their kingdom was because during that time, they had to expend all of their manpower and resources to settle the turmoil and chaos that was happening internally and had no time or manpower to spare on outside forces or threats and it was also the last form of mercy the current Queen of the Kingdom had bestowed upon the people she once called her family.

Because of this they had lost much of their lands to some of the surrounding powers and hidden powers in the neutral territories. What remained were the current lands of the Regulus kingdom which had lost about a third of their original lands.

It didn't matter though because the internal turmoil was finally quelled after years of effort on the Queen's part. Now, 100 years had passed since that time and the Merkruz Kingdom was finally launching a large scale attack on the Kingdom in the name of claiming back their rightful place on the Regulus Throne.

From what Cecil saw, this was just a sibling dispute! A brother and sister didn't get a long and the sister smacked the brother down from his position of power and replaced him as the rightful heir before banishing him out of the kingdom for his misdeeds against the people.

That was already an act of mercy, if it was like any feudal kingdom back on Earth, Cecil was pretty sure that they'd be executed instead of facing banishment.

"That's one ungrateful prince," Cecil said.

"Yeah, tell me about it. He was lucky that his sister didn't out right kill him!" Lucia said

"Well, their feud was passed down to their descendants. From what I found out from the guilds we passed over during our journey, the Merkruz Principality is actually pretty wealthy and well managed, I just don't see why they'd ruin their economy by going to war," Serilla added.

Information about a kingdom that was practically thousands of miles away from where they were circulated freely in the Tempest Kingdom, it was odd how even a noble like Benedicia would know about the history of another kingdom.

"Naturally, that's because the nobles in all the superpowers were required to study the history of the entire Midgard Continent, not just their own kingdom's history, at least, that's what Benedicia explained to us, right Seri?" Lucia explained to Cecil when he asked.

"Yup, pretty extensive, huh?"

It was pretty extensive, but not as much as Earth's education system. From what Cecil could remember, his twin brothers, Luca and Gabriel, were required to learn world history during their time in high school.

Alterna's children had it easier since they were required to only learn about their own continent's history, but now at least Cecil knew which side he was going to have his party pick.

"Well, let's just hurry through this check point, at least now we know whose side we're going to be on for the upcoming conflict." He said.

"Regulus, right darling?"

"Yup. Revenge is empty and I don't want to help a kingdom that's basing their actions off of something so empty and petty."

"Hehe~ good boy~" Serilla said as she hugged and patted Cecil on the head.

"Hm...Seri, did your b.o.o.b.s grow bigger?" Cecil said as he groped the girl's large b.r.e.a.s.ts.

"D-Darling?! N-not here!" Serilla said as she quickly separated from Cecil. They were both currently on the wagon's driver seat. Lucia was on the right side of Cecil while Serilla was on the left.

If this was inside of the wagon, Serilla wouldn't mind Cecil groping her, but in this situation, she was much too shy for that.

Cecil wasn't acting on some horny impulse, he just thought it was true since he was suddenly pulled into her embrace and could feel the large mountains pressed together on his body.

"Well...I guess they did grow bigger, but that's because it's all darling's fault!"

"Hmm...I guess Lulu's going to need to make you a new pair of bras?"

"D-Darling! Stop saying such embarrassing things out in the open!" Serilla said in a fl.u.s.ter as she quickly covered her man's mouth.

"Nahahaha~ oh my gosh, this is too funny! Cel's accepted our feelings, but his bluntness is kinda hard to face, huh Seri?" Lucia whispered to Serilla.

"Ugh, his denseness and bluntness is too much!"

"Well, at least he's much more honest about his feelings to us, right?"

"Y-yeah...but still, he should at least learn when to say and do things and when not to," Serilla grumbled.

"You mean he should learn some tact!"

"Yeah, exactly!"

"Hey, what're you two whispering about?" Cecil asked.

"I'm not talking to you darling, hmph!" Serilla said as she turned her head away.

Cecil turned to look at Lucia and she only smiled slyly and shrugged.

Inwardly, Cecil was scratching his head. Did he do something wrong? He could only ask Serilla later because now it was finally his party's turn to submit their IDs and exit the kingdom's borders.

The process didn't take long and before they knew it, the Wanderer was already being pulled away by Sleipnir, heading farther and farther away from the Tempest Kingdom's checkpoint.

"Alright, let's hope we don't run into trouble!"

"Oi, oi, oi, why don't you stop right where you are pretty ladies~"

Cecil had just exclaimed that he didn't want to run into any trouble, but apparently he just jinxed himself and trouble had straightaway came knocking only milliseconds after he finished his sentence.

"...shit..."

"Cel, you jinxed it..." Lucia said while she calmly observed the group of people that was slowly surrounding their wagon.

"It's just a coincidence!"

"This is because darling has no tact! This is karma!" Serilla added.

"S-Seri? What did I do wrong?!"

The group of bandits that had stopped and surrounded the party, grew agitated and infuriated when they saw the 3 teenagers straight out ignore them and were squabbling amongst themselves.

The angry bandit leader immediately called out to them in anger, "OI! Do you NOT see US?!"

"Why don't you shut the f.u.c.k up asshole! My girlfriend's angry and I need to set things straight with her! Now f.u.c.k off to the side before I sic Sleipnir and Silver at you bastards!" Cecil roared back in anger at the bandit leader. He turned his attention back to Serilla and saw the girl looking back at him with sparkling eyes.

"W-what?"

"Darling called me his girlfriend, yay~!"

"..."

"..."

All the bandits around them could feel a nerve pop in their heads as their blood pressure rose due to their anger. They immediately began roaring in fury and charged at the wagon.

Cecil quickly picked up on the bloodl.u.s.t and reacted instantly, just before he left, "Let me take care of these bastards, you two just sit tight."

"M'kay~"

"Alright darling~"

Cecil disappeared from his spot and multiple afterimages flashed in front of the bandits before they were sent flying backwards into the air. He didn't take their lives and only knocked them all unconscious.

"Not even a day out and we've already been attacked," Cecil shook his head as he made his way back towards the wagon. To his surprise, he saw Lucia and Yuna on the driver seat, with the sky guardrail already set up.

It was the safety equipment that Cecil created for the wagon. He didn't want anyone accidentally falling off of the wagon's driver seat while they were flying. The rails were also had safety belts that the two girls used to secure themselves.

This was a rule that Cecil established. They had to follow these safety measures in order to ride the wagon and sit on the driver's seat while it was airborne. Lucia especially enjoyed this because she loved the feeling of being able to soar through the skies.

Yuna was there because...Silver was there. Lately, those two have been stuck to each other like glue. Cecil found it very touching because in his eyes, Silver had found himself a sister-figure. This was a total misunderstanding on his part though because Lucia had inadvertently walked in on the couple going at 'it' one night when she accidentally walked into the wrong room in her drowsiness.

She couldn't help but envy Yuna for finding her own partner and how fast they had progressed in their relationship. Lucia would still blush whenever she remembered that night when she saw Silver and Yuna together.

Sleipnir had been placed into the pet plane by Serilla and he was replaced by Silver. It looked like they were going to be taking to the skies now since he was rested up.

"Cel~ Seri wants to see you, she's waiting inside," Lucia said to him with a grin on her face. Cecil only nodded in reply. He was just hoping Serilla wasn't still mad at him.

"Uh...y-yeah...she's still not mad at me right?" Cecil asked.

"Who knows~ why don't you go in and ask her?"

"O-okay..."

Cecil didn't find anyone inside, but he already knew that Serilla was waiting behind the door. He deliberately played dumb because he didn't want to further anger the girl. He was just about to 'inadvertently' turn around, but the door slammed shut and he was suddenly toppled onto the bed.

"Darling~"

Cecil looked up and saw Serilla in her birthday suit.

"Uh...S-Seri, you're not angry anymore?"

"No~pe," Serilla replied as she licked her lips.

"G-good then...uhm, what are we doing right now?"

"Hihihihi~ darling are you purposefully acting stupid?"

"M-maybe?"

"Hmhm~ let me tell you what I'm going to do," Serilla came close and Cecil could feel her two large mountains press against his chest.

He immediately began blushing and his red face made Serilla giggle as she whispered into his ear, "I'm. Going. To. Eat. You. Darling~"