With the leather suitcase in his hand, Virtya sneaked into the dining room first, and here, he only found four people who were dining silently except one person among them who was blabbering non-stop even if it looked as if the other three individuals were not interested to join him in his conversation.
Of course, those who were eating breakfast at the dining table were Catalina who was seated beside Grisha(minister of education) and the jabbering Alexandre who was seated beside Galina.
"Galina, you won't believe this but I can order this world to sever itself into two and through my conviction, the world will separate..."
"Ahem!"
Virtya cleared his throat when he entered into the dining room and there, his eyes and Catalina's met but he quickly looked away. He seemed to be utterly annoyed every time he looked at Catalina's silhouette and that was why he had always been avoiding her. To Virtya, the taciturn Tanya was much better than Catalina because Virtya didn't like the words that Catalina always tell him even if she was a child to him, he was peeved by her.
Virtya stared at his sister and smiled, she was eating her breakfast in silence while Alexandre tried to tell her stupid stories but it seemed that she was not interested in hearing them.
Virtya smiled as his sister's presence usually warmed his heart which had been stabbed from time to time by Catalina's presence.
When everyone in the room heard Virtya's grunt, they turned around and looked at him and it was Catalina who spoke first.
She stared at him with sparkling eyes as if Virtya was the only one in her world and then she said boisterously,
"I can see that you are about to leave me in solitude once again. Don't you know that I am your wife? At least, set aside some days so that we can be together once again or... What about I join you on this trip?" As Catalina asked with anticipation, her eyes darted between Tanya and Virtya.
Virtya was not staring at her as she spoke, he was still staring at his sister who was seated beside Alexandre, it was as if Catalina didn't exist in his world and what she had just said didn't concern him. However, when Catalina stared at Tanya, she didn't see any changes to her expression or body movement, she was just aloof as usual. Tanya didn't took Catalina seriously. It was as if a grown-up was looking at a child. In fact, Catalina hated those cold and indifferent eyes of Tanya. In all the time that she had been together with Virtya, Catalina had tried so much to get in Tanya's way so that Tanya could recognize her as an equal but Tanya's gaze upon her had never changed.
What Catalina hated the most was the fact that Tanya was spending more time with Virtya, which had made her to start raising many conjectures in her mind as what was really the relationship between Virtya and Tanya.
And she had been seeing it every day. Those eyes of Virtya when he looked at Tanya every time, it couldn't be ignored, even if she convinced herself that it couldn't happen, she couldn't hide the fact that the way Virtya looked at her was different to the way he looked at Tanya which made her jealous but she convinced herself each time that Virtya was just a passing wind and when her father invade Azuhai, she would be free and therefore, she didn't need Virtya.
The room turned silent as everyone gave Virtya the room to reply to Catalina and therefore he couldn't ignore her.
He turned to her and smiled,
"I thought, you wanted a copy of all the new knowledge that we teach to the students? Don't put mr Grisha in an awkward position. He came here for that very reason, so, be cooperative, or if you want to leave with us, you will have to forget about getting the information that you want, I don't want to trouble Mr Grish so much, I know, he also has a packed routine."
"Your majesty, I can..." Grisha wanted to say something but Virtya raised his hand to silence him.
Walking for a few steps, Virtya came to a halt when he came closer to the edge of the table, he looked directly at Catalina's eyes while smiling and asked.
"What do you want? Knowledge or following me to where I am going?"
Catalina took a peek at whatever that was left on her plate and she pondered and then with sparkling eyes, she said,
"I will be here with Mr Grisha. I don't want to trouble you."
Virtya's lips curled up as he stared at Catalina intently for a few minutes without saying anything and then he slapped the table and heaved a sigh. He turned to Tanya and said,
"Let's go!"
"I am coming with you." Galina's voice was heard before Virtya exited from the room and before Virtya could say anything, Galina had already stood up and was behind him.
Alexandre was not left out, he had already stood up and stared at Galina's leaving silhouette with questioning look before he stared at his plate, he groaned and pushed the plate aside before he followed Galina.
Together, the four individuals left the palace with knights surrounding them.
They were all headed to the blacksmithing guild where Virtya would be spending almost a month as he fabricated the components of the steam engine and the steam powered vehicles.
It was still early in the morning and the temperature was low, from time to time, cold breeze would brush on the surface of the armour of the knights guarding the palace making then to shiver.
The sky was cloudy which had obscured the appearance of the sun but there was no mist, only the cold breeze was what annoyed the people who had woken up this very morning as it eerily convinced the denizens to return back to the embrace if their quilts.
Just at this moment, a teenager came out of the palace doors and then the others followed. The imposing knights were encompassing these teenagers with their menacing aura which deterred the malevolent stares towards them. However, the presence of these imposing knights made the knights who were shivering to bit their tongues and stand erect like a pillar, they didn't want to be noticed by these imposing knights.
[Is this the effect of training at those training grounds that king Virtya made recently? I heard that it took Virtya a lot of money to come up with that entire structure... What could be the demons that Virtya placed there to change a person into this?]
[I heard that if you fail in that training, you will remain back there to repeat the training again and again or be kicked out.]
[You are wrong buddy! I have a friend who is among the knights who were picked to go to that training and he was among the people that failed the training routine and I can assure you that he was not kicked out but he was registered to another department that is still under trials. King Virtya calls this department: the police.]
[I heard that some people died while training... Is it that hard? What kind of training can take the life of someone? Just what is king Virtya into nowadays?]
The shivering knights continued to talk fearfully about the new knighthood training that was still under the trial phase.
Anyway, the four individuals entered into the carriage and the imposing knights climbed into the saddles of their horses while others entered in other carriages and left the palace for the blacksmithing guild.
Naturally formed furrows could be seen on the road and in many of these deep furrows, dirty water passed by. There was mud on the roads but it was not to an extreme extend like the situation in Pollow district.
However, even if it was chilly and the ground was slightly muddy after the rains overnight, Virtya could still see people walking by as they hurried to their work this morning. Most of them stood aside and stopped to watch Virtya's caravan passing by and they all lowered their heads while greeting king Virtya before continuing on their way.
"I need to build modern roads and infrastructure and these people also need cars to move around. They should not be walking to their works but they should be driving there." Virtya murmured. However, his mood was sour and even if he stared through the window so that he could calm himself down, it was not helping at all, just looking at the so called improved livelihood of the natives made him agitated.
Was this an improved life that the denizens praised him for?