Rudeus called Nanahoshi to help us contact Peragius, apparently she is staying in Peragius Castle after she fell ill with mana drain syndrome.
That's a relief as it means the timeline hasn't been changed significantly.
With one of the communication rings that Orsted gave to me and Rudeus, I contacted Nanahoshi at the castle to let her know that we would be paying a visit.
And so for this we left the city to the east.
Here were some ruins of the old Sharia fort that was used in the war against Laplace, and it was the meeting point for us to be teleported.
We all went on foot obviously and arrived shortly after ten in the morning.
"Very well, I will call Almanfi, please wait" Rudeus said and took out of his tunic a kind of flute that seemed to be plated in gold.
But when we touched it, it didn't make any sound and we just waited.
I looked up at the sky for someone and I could see him.
It was moving at lightning speed, but I could easily follow that speed. It was nothing more than a ball of light, but I could assume that it was Almanfi.
In the end the guy landed in the middle of all of us and saw us.
"Hmm, a new one... very well, Lord Peragius is already waiting for you, take this and don't drop it" he said and began to pass some smooth golden-colored rods to each of us.
When Almanfi finished handing out the sticks, he left without saying anything else.
So I waited about twenty seconds, the first to leave were Ariel and Luke and then me.
It was like waking up from a dream, I don't think I got used to that feeling anytime soon.
When I opened my eyes I was inside a beautiful castle completely in white, even I couldn't help but marvel.
"Wow, that Peragius has good taste..." I muttered.
"Indeed, this is the most beautiful castle in the world after all" a female voice said from my side.
I turned around and it was a woman with angel wings, blonde hair and a bird mask, she must be Silvaryl.
"Yes, I certainly do," I replied with a smile.
Sylvaril lightly flapped her wings as she looked at me.
Shortly after Sylphiette arrived and ten seconds later Rudeus arrived.
"Very well, now that everyone is here, I will guide you to Mr. Peragius" she said and started walking.
We walked through several beautiful corridors with sculptures that resembled those of my old world.
Everyone was quiet and had worried expressions except for Ariel who had an impassive expression but I could see that it was just a mask.
I looked at Rudeus who was walking next to me but slightly behind me, I motioned for him to come closer to me and he did.
[Have you been to the library labyrinth yet?] I asked him in English
He blinked slightly as he processed what i had just said.
[heee....no, is that important?] He replied with a marked accent
[no, I don't think so, but l Let's see what Orsted says] I answered him.
Sylphiette turned to look at us for a few seconds but only sighed.
At the end we came to a large white door with a dragon symbol on it, that must be the throne room of Peragius.
"Very well, on the other side of this door is Lord Peragius. I remind everyone to be careful and you, introduce yourself with a bow" she said while looking at me.
I nodded and she opened one of the huge doors.
"come in" she said.
So that's what we did, first Ariel came in followed by Sylphiette, Luke, Rudeus and finally me.
The room was really huge, it had huge decorations everywhere and in the middle of it was a man about two meters tall sitting on a throne with a bored face.
It reminded me of Gull Farion in several ways.
Peragius looked at us all as if evaluating us and his eyes landed on me, he looked directly at me for a few seconds but dismissed me and looked at Ariel.
"Well princess, how can I help you today?" The product without moving from its position.
"I came here to ask for your help in my campaign to take the throne of Asura" she said with a bow.
"Oh? In that case, what makes a person a true king?" He asked with the same bored face.
"What makes a person a true king you ask me?..." Ariel muttered.
"The will, the will to fulfill your promise to the people who gave their lives so that I could take the throne" she said.
"Heh, so your motivation for being queen is to keep promises to the dead you say?" Peragius asked.
"Yes, you are quite right, Lord Perugius. My wish depends on the will of others, I'm sure that's a far cry from what the rest of the world would consider a true king, but...If I can be the king that those who entrusted me with their will expect, then I don't care if I am not a "true king" she said.
"Oh?" Perugius frowned, not seeming too pleased with her answer. "And you would ask me to help a king as foolish as yourself?".
"Yes. If I'm so stupid, all the more reason I should expect your help." She answered seriously.
"Hah!" Peragius let out a sound of exasperation as he looked at her.
Oh boy, I don't like where this is going...
"Do you really think your answer is enough to force me to help you?" Perugius asked.
Ariel shook her head. "No, I do not think so, my lord. However, these are my true feelings. No lies, no obfuscation: this is the king in whom I, Ariel Anemoi Asura, I wish to become" she said.
Her gaze fixed intently on Perugius. "If you reject what I represent, then I have no need of your power." Ariel said firmly.
His words were derogatory, even Perugius was caught off guard, his eyes widening, a wave of shock ran through the twelve assembled spirits.
Perugius narrowed his eyes. "Do you think you can reach the throne without my help?"
"If my ideals are so different from yours, I think your help would be more of a hindrance than a help," she replied.
Perugius dropped his hand from her cheek and rose slowly. His features were
tense with fury, his mouth drawn into a thin line and his eyes wide open, He had not closed his fists, but his shoulders are squared.
Suddenly, he raised a hand, gor a moment I imagined the twelve spirits pounced on Ariel. But that was not what happened.
"Well said, Ariel Anemoi Asura!" Perugius' voice boomed. "You have made your conviction clear!"
"I, the Armored Dragon King Perugius Dola, swear upon the name of my late friend Gaunis Freean Asura, that I will aid you in your quest!, "I'll prepare a teleportation circle for you! Return to the palace as soon as you can, get everything ready, and call me when you're ready!" Peragius firmly declared
"Thank you" Ariel said with a bow.
Sylphiette and Like bowed even more and Rudeus gave a simple bow.
"In that case we will withdraw" Ariel said
Peragius nodded but then his gaze fell on me.
"You, who are you?" He asked.
"My name is Gino Britzs, I will help Princess Ariel in her fight for the throne" i declared.
Peragius stroked his chin as he looked at me.
"I see... you have a very powerful Touki, you are the new Sword God right?" He asked.
"That's correct sir, for about three years now" I replied.
"Hmm, I see, you are very strong, your power is so great that you could even surpass Millis" he said while looking at me.
"Wow...I didn't know that, thank you very much sir" I said.
"For a Sword God you are very humble and very young, boy, tell me, is there something you want? More power? Money? Fame?" He asked.
"Nothing like that sir, I'm already married, I have children and a position in the world powers, but thank you very much" I said.
"Okay, I like you, you have permission to stay in my castle as long as you want" he said.
I bowed to him and we left the room.
As the door closed behind us, Ariel let out a sound of victory as she raised her fist in the air.
Luke and Sylphiette seemed equally pleased, but I found it strange, Ariel must have only come to that answer after seeing Derrick Reibat's diary in the library labyrinth, I guess that's another change in the timeline...
"Alright, time to get ready, we're going back to college to plan our eventual takeover of the throne" she said with a big smile.
Everyone else except me nodded at this and so we returned to the university.
...
"I honestly didn't think you were a married person Gino" Ariel said
Now we were back at the university, while Elmore and Cleree informed Ginas about Ariel's departure, she was here preparing
"Yes, I actually have four wives..." I muttered.
Ariel blinked several times as did Luke, Sylphiette and Rudeus who were talking in a corner but it seemed like they were also surprised by this.
"I-I see...it makes sense, a person as powerful as you needs a lot of wives" Ariel said while nodding to herself
"I wouldn't put it that way but I guess it's true" I murmured with a smile.
Ariel also smiled but her face suddenly became serious.
"Gino...if I may ask...do you also work with Mr. Dragon God?"
"Yes, why the question?" I said.
"your bracelet, and the way you spoke to Rudeus, also no offense but I don't think a Sword God would be that interested in helping a kingdom that you could easily put under your control" She said with a sigh.
"Ha... I have no such intentions, I already have my own territory, but in part it is true, but this also benefits me, you being queen can open many opportunities for me" I said.
"I see, in that case thank you very much again for helping my cause" she said bowing
I bowed in the same way.
I looked out the window and saw that it was already afternoon, I guess it's time to go back.
"When do you plan to go to Asura?" I asked.
"In about three months or so, why the question?" She replied.
"It's nothing, it's okay, I'll come back tomorrow" I said
Ariel just nodded and I left her office.
The letter that Ariel's father is sick will arrive sooner so I must be prepared, but for now, I will simply return home.
=====
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It's been two months since I started to have contact with Ariel, I didn't do much more than start planning our route, although I didn't do much since Rudeus was the one who gave the ideas, but the news that the king had fallen ill arrived a month earlier than planned, so Ariel and her entourage had to rush things.
There is nothing to highlight at home, unfortunately none of my wives got pregnant from that crazy night.
The only change is that Isolte was finally able to make a long sword of light which made her a saint of the sword, with this it was her moment to return to Asura, it was an emotional farewell between her, Eris and Nina, but nothing more.
The trip from Ranoa to the Kingdom of Asura used to last several months, but fortunately, we had access to the teleportation circles.
Our first stop was Peragius' floating fortress, where we were able to teleport with our carriage to a point just north of the Asura border, from there we would travel in a more conventional manner to our destination
Today we stopped mainly to pay our respects to Peragius, Ariel took an elegant step forward, and began to deliver a formal speech.
Peragius listened to her, leaning on his throne with a haughty expression and his loyal spirits at his side.
A little later, after Ariel gave her greeting, we followed Sylvaril back to the hall, the teleportation circle we would use was located a little further back from the one we had passed through, we found it at the back of a large empty room, which glowed faintly in the dim light.
Sylvaril took the trouble to give us a lecture on the history of the room itself, but I'll skip all that, the most important thing was that this particular teleportation circle would take us to a forest near the Asurian border, Peragius had other circles in his fortress, but this was the one that would take us closest to our destination.
All the manual and automatic teleportation circles throughout the country had been recently destroyed by Darius.
The only one who knew where to find them was Hitogami and the only person with the power to destroy them all was High Minister Darius, who could call upon private forces spread throughout the kingdom, that was my guess and it seems Rudeus accepted it.
Unless you had a suitable place, appropriate tools, and extensive knowledge of magic circles, you had no hope of making a teleportation circle yourself, in other words, we couldn't make one ourselves inside Asura, we were going to have to take a somewhat longer route to reach our destination.
The way Peragius would arrive in Asura was unknown to everyone but me, Ariel seemed to be aware of the details, at least, they were planning a surprise and dramatic appearance.
...
We entered the teleportation circle and soon found ourselves in a ruin, its design and construction were very similar to the desert ruin I had teleported to on the Begaritt continent.
From what Orsted told me, there used to be many such structures all over the world, but since the Laplace War they were almost entirely destroyed.
We exited the ruin and found ourselves in a thick, vibrant forest, according to the map we had studied beforehand, we were a little northwest of the narrow valley known as the Red Wyrm's Upper Jaw.
Unfortunately, we encountered a small problem right from the start.
We had gotten our carriage into the teleportation circle without any problems, but now we couldn't get it out of the ruin, however before I could complain about this, Ariel's two assistants began to disassemble the carriage, little by little, they took it apart and carried it out the door, the thing had seemed unusually small to me, but apparently it was a model that could be disassembled
We tied the carriage parts to our horses and slowly made our way to the main road, where the thing was quickly put back together, the sun was already setting so we decided to camp nearby and spend the night there.
...
As we were surrounded by a lush forest, it was fairly easy to get food and firewood, we hunted some monsters for their meat, collected some wild plants for seasoning and killed some treants for their wood.
Ariel and Sylphiette's assistants took care of cooking that night, I decided to keep an eye on the surroundings, we were a small group so it wasn't that difficult, Rudeus on the other hand sat near the campfire doing nothing.
My job was also to identify Hitogami's apostles with Rudeus, his first candidate was Luke but I already knew that it would only be a moment of stupidity from him, his devotion to Ariel is stronger, but if he tried something he wouldn't even be able to blink before his head was blown off.
I looked at Luke with these thoughts in my mind, he was standing at attention next to Ariel, clad in his impressive and shiny armor, from the looks of it, he was ready and eager to defend her from any unexpected danger.
In other words, Hitogami's disciples were usually his victims, even good and honest people could be fooled by his lies.
"Rudy! Dinner is ready! Gino come get your food!" Sylphiette said snapping me out of my thoughts.
I guess it's just a matter of staying alert, you never know
...
Ariel retreated to her tent at dusk, the rest of us would camp outside, watching the area in alternating shifts.
There were five of us in the group, not counting the princess, one of us was enough to keep watch, but I would have a shift with someone else, I decided that I would have a wider margin to watch the forest, looking for anything unusual.
"Okay, I'll take a look" I said.
I nodded to the others and walked away from the light of our campfire and into the depths of the forest, soon I was surrounded by a gloomy darkness, with nothing but a torch to light my way, I could sense that there were no enemies in the immediate area.
...
After about five minutes of walking steadily, I had covered a good distance from our campsite
It was then that someone suddenly stepped out of the darkness.
A moment before, there had been nothing in front of me, and now I was staring at a silver-haired man with yellow eyes and a truly terrifying face.
I was expected to make periodic reports to Orsted during our journey, the others might get suspicious if I disappeared on my own too often, so the plan was to meet up once every few days, whenever it was my turn to explore the area.
"How are things going so far?" he asked
"Luke hasn't done anything suspicious, and the trip is going smoothly at the moment" I replied
These were the two things I had been tasked with overseeing, but it was only the first day, so there wasn't much to say, Orsted clearly hadn't expected anything more.
"That makes sense, I wouldn't expect anything to happen too quickly" he said with a nod.
"True," I replied.
"However, be on your guard when you pass through the upper maw, though I believe it won't be too difficult for you to break through even if Reida were to appear before you," he said.
"I understand," I replied.
"It will proceed as planned, then?" I asked
"Yes" he replied curtly
If there was an attack, I could use it as evidence to discourage any further travel on the main roads, once I convinced them that heading straight to the capital would be too risky, our search for alternative routes should lead us directly to hiring Triss and her group of bandits
If there was no attack, Orsted planned to go into action himself, which meant a false flag operation, basically, Orsted had brought several summoning scrolls and magic crystals to activate them, the monsters they would summon were not native to this area, so he could convincingly argue that someone had sent them after us
In any case, things should work out according to our plans.
"Take this with you just in case" he said
Orsted pulled out some papers from inside his coat, they were scrolls covered in complex magic circles.
"They're King-level healing magic scrolls," Orsted explained.
"You're only advanced in that school right? Use these if the need arises on yourself or others in your group," he said.
"Thank you very much," I said as I put them away in my own robe.
"Hey... it's said that you're able to use basically all kinds of magic, can you cast gravity magic?" I asked.
"Yes I can, but they're not particularly useful for my purposes," he replied.
Hmm, makes sense, it's Orsted after all.
"Just one thing Orsted, if Luke turns out to be a disciple of Hitogami, will you let Rudeus decide whether to spare his life or not?" I asked
"yes" he replied
"very well" he replied
So, until this power struggle was completely resolved, Hitogami's apostles were not going to change, and once this was all over they would naturally be freed from his control...although it was possible that he would turn to them again later to use them in some other plan.
On another note, it seemed that no matter what happened, Hitogami wouldn't be able to take a new apostle until he reached a tipping point, which meant that killing one of them would reduce the number of pawns at his disposal for now.
Definitely, the smartest option was to finish them off, if possible
"Well... I should go back now, they might get suspicious if I'm gone too long" I said
"Very well" he replied
I stood up and the first of our usual meetings got up. The next one to come would be Rudeus. I hurried back to the bonfire and reported that I hadn't seen anything strange. The next shift didn't take long to take my place and I got under my blanket.
The first day of our journey had passed without incident
...
The same upper mouth was the only path that took us through a narrow valley. The path wasn't as straight as the holy sword road, but it was just as easy.
There were no back roads or forks to worry about.
This place was basically a borderland, unclaimed by any nation.
...
"Uhm, Rudy? Could you stop touching my butt, I'm driving the horse..." Sylphiette muttered from my side.
Currently me, Sylphiette and Rudeus were escorting Ariel's carriage.
But at this comment I lost all my concentration and looked at him.
The guy seemed to get the message and shrugged while Sylphiette just laughed lightly.
I'm not calling you a pedophile because I'd bite my tongue but at least I know how to control myself!!
...
At the end of the Red Wyrm's upper jaw, we had a panoramic view of the forest that stretched out before us. The entrance to the valley was high enough that we could see all the way to the fortress walls on the other side. However, the trees are tall and dense, making it impossible to follow the path past the point where it entered the forest. There was no chance of spotting anything that might be waiting for us in the depths, and it was pretty clear that nothing that happened in there would be visible from the outside.
The fortress walls were high enough that the soldiers on that side could easily keep an eye on the entrance to the valley we were in. In other words, they could control who entered the forest and who left it.
"Well... I guess we're finally back," Sylphiette muttered quietly, stopping her horse at the entrance to the forest. Luke had also stopped, along with the carriage.
Ariel's two attendants stepped out of the carriage's driver's seat without a word. Sylphiette and Luke stepped out, and a moment later, the princess herself stepped out from inside the carriage, carrying a small bouquet of flowers with her.
The five of them headed together towards a stone that stood at the side of the road. It was a perfectly normal looking stone for the most part, but someone had carved an X into its surface.
Ariel stepped in front of the group and placed the flowers on top of the stone, then clasped her hands together in Millis' prayer style.
This was the resting place of all the knights, wizards, and attendants who had fallen fighting for Ariel in this forest. They had been attacked numerous times on their journey north, but many had died in an ambush here.
"There's a much higher risk of ambush here, we'll camp on the outskirts of the forest for today, and then traverse it in a single day tomorrow," Ariel said quietly.
With that Sylphiette and the others returned to their horses, looking much more serious than before.
=========
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