Their travel continued without any other commotion. However, the atmosphere inside the carriage had gone awkward for all of them.
Yana wanted to ask more about this world, but she did not dare to do so. After seeing that face of his, she could not bring up any word out of her mouth. She could not even bear to look at him right now. She simply spent her time gazing at the rich forest and the horizon above it.
Unlike Yana, Olivia was staring at Jiro’s bent posture. His back was arched low, for his head was bowed down close to his knees. His forearms were resting on his thighs with his hands clasped together as if he was praying. She still could not believe his condition. It was the first time she heard of such thing. To lose one’s memory had never happened in this world, not even once. She could clearly see his torment.
Olivia honestly wanted to continue her conversation with Yana earlier. She had not felt such excitement for a long time. The last time was after she took hold of her first book. But she could set that aside for now. She had decided to help him get out of his misery.
As for Jiro, he understood that they were considering his feelings and he was thankful for their concern, but this stillness in the air was not helping at all. He had said to them not to mind him. That he was fine with them talking, but the two ladies had not had a lively conversation again. As a result, he was blaming himself for this uncomfortable ambiance.
“We’re slowing down.”
It was Yana who has noticed.
Olivia shifted her gaze from Jiro to Yana, notifying her, “Then, we have arrived.”
With that being said, Yana wordlessly stood up from her seat and anchored herself at the window, tightly holding onto its rim, to see what lies ahead the road.
The gentle breeze, caused by them being in motion, blew her short hair amiably. The tickling touch of the cool wind lingered in her ear as she behold of what was in front of her.
Cephel was very far from any human settlement Yana had in mind. Up ahead, there was no brick houses, nor anything close to something that resembled human habitation.
Up ahead, a giant forest filled the horizon.
The giant forest appeared to be a plateau from afar. Because, the trees of this titan forest were far larger, both in height and the reach of its branches, from the regular trees that Yana had seen from this world, and hers.
But there was a single tree that stood out.
That tree was so tall that Yana could see its branches from the distance. Also, based on Yana’s opinion, the tree’s canopy could cover an entire outdoor arena. And its treetop, though not abundant with leaves, could almost touch the clouds. This was how the lone tree literally stood out.
“Yana, what you are doing is dangerous,” Olivia sternly warned Yana like an elder sister does to her younger siblings.
Yana obediently ejected herself out of the window back to her seat and cheerfully admired the scenery she had seen. “It’s so beautiful! Jiro, you should see it too!”
Jiro, who had been looking at her, simply smiled at her. Somehow her cheerfulness had lightened up his mood. If he could not regain his memories back, he could just make new ones, right?
It is as simple as that. He chided himself for sulking earlier.
Seeing the awkward atmosphere had vanished, Olivia beamed at them and said. “Do not worry, Jiro. For I, Olivia Seria, shall aid the two of you in finding a way to regain your memories, and of course, a way for you to go back to your own world.”
Yana had noticed the sudden formality in the damsel’s voice and such formality is hard to decline, so she humbly accepted it, replying, “We’re already in debt from your kindness, but we’ll gladly accept your help, Olivia. Thank you for everything.”
“Thank you very much, Olivia. I’ll do my best for me not to become a liability,” came Jiro’s affirmation.
With this, a seedling of friendship had been sown and it would grow into a wonderful relationship in the future.
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Upon entering the gigantic forest, everything had turned dark. Though they could still see each other inside, it was still undeniably dark outside that they could not see if something was there anymore.
The newcomers, had also noticed the drop in temperature. The air had become colder, but it was not that cold for them to shiver uncontrollably.
A little bit later, small glowing lights started to drift inside the carriage. All of these glowing lights were floating towards a certain direction. Yana stared at them enchanted be their beauty. The same goes with Jiro. Their stares followed them up to solve the question of where the dazzling lights were heading. And the answer to the question, was the flower above them.
However, it was not the same flower. Earlier it was a simple white bulb flower, but now its petals had spread wide open and its filaments could be seen rooted at its core.
It was then, Yana and Jiro noticed a new fragrant smell in the air.
Seeing their amusing expressions, Olivia started to explain. “That flower is called ‘Lilia’, one of the two nocturnal flowers here in Corona. They only bloom during the night and closes a few minutes after daybreak. It was said that this flower was brought to this world when it was given to a maiden by the moon goddess, Cyra herself. That maiden’s name is Lilia. She was looking for her betrothed one whom she believed had got lost while hunting… Oh, I started to babble about nonsense again.”
Yana and Jiro smiled kindly at her and said that it was fine. “After all, we need to learn everything about this world,” Yana added.
And so Olivia continued narrating the legend and just at the time she had finished, their surroundings became bright and lively. Olivia knew very well what this means. They had reached the trading square of Cephel.
The trading square of Cephel, was not in fact a square in shape but round. Right in the middle of this clear space, the tallest tree in this forest stood there like an obelisk, completely making this area as a rotunda for the oyomus and mich, a terrestrial avian that has a long slender neck and is being used to pull small carriages and for patrolling of the local guards.
Being a place for merchants, hunters, travelers, and locals to be gathered here, this was a very busy place. Beneath the shade of the giant tree, tents of different sizes were put up as stalls of different goods. Some tents were for government offices, it can be easily distinguished with a white flag with a symbol of a sword with a ‘lilia’ on its handguard.
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Their carriage finally pulled to a stop. The first one to descend was the middle-aged man from the other cabin and he left without thanking Olivia at all.
Yana berated the man’s impudent action while Olivia simply shrugged it off. “He was not someone worth the time to talk to.” Olivia said.
Their driver went down and open the door for Olivia because that was part of his work, Olivia went out first, followed by Yana. Both maidens were assisted by the driver in their descent. The last one to disembark from the carriage was Jiro.
“I will send the payment to your office later. Thank you for taking care of us.” Olivia took a couple of silver coins and gave it to their driver which he humbly took.
The three of them started to walk away, but the driver called out at them, rather, one of them, “Madam, if you’ll excuse me.”
Olivia completely thought that she was the one who was being called so she asked, “Why? Do you have something to say?”
The driver was happy about the fact that Olivia Seria, the most well-known bachelorette in Cephel, was casually having a conversation with him. If this event had happened before, he could say that he was the happiest man among all of the unmarried men in Cephel, but this day was different.
On this day, he was able to witness something he only heard from his ancestors which he thought of as some fictitious folklore, but apparently, there was truth behind the passed-down stories. And he wanted to know this particular person who had done something that has not been done recently.
He bowed and said apologetically, “Oh! I humbly apologize, Lady Seria. I do not mean to confuse you. But, the person I am addressing is…” His gaze moved towards Yana who was staring back at him.
“Yana?” Olivia asked, turning her head to see the owner of the name she had uttered.
“Me?” Yana asked their driver pointing at herself.
Astonishment was all over her face. It was not just her, all three of them were puzzled of why their driver wanted to speak with Yana.
“Will it take long?” she asked worriedly.
The man shook his head in reply.
“I see. I’ll hear what you have to say.”
Yana apologized to Olivia for stalling her plans for the day, which was returned with a, “I do not mind this delay. We are going to wait for you here.”
Bowing, Yana left them with their driver ushering her near the oyomu. Without waiting a second, the man turned to face her and asked, “How did you do that?”
Yana blinked several times before she returned a question instead of a reply, “Did what?”
“Stopping her,” the driver laid his hand on the head of his oyomu just below its small horn. “What you had done is impossible for anyone. Do you have any idea about that?”
His voice was whole and deep. The seriousness in his strong-looking face was emanating. Yana could feel his strong personality, but she could not see his reason of asking her about that. “I don’t know. I just closed my eyes and she just stopped.”
“Did you say something during that time?”
Yana shook her head. It was the truth she had not said any word that moment.
“Tell me, are you an Altarian?”
“Altarian?” Yana repeated the foreign word.
Seeing the confusion in her face, the man understood that this woman has no idea of what was the meaning of the word. “I see. I am sorry for holding you for long. I have nothing else to ask.”
“Then I have something to ask from you.” From that point, it was Yana who took over the conversation.
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Olivia was, as usual, curious of the shown interest of their driver on Yana. She was not adding colors to it. She was plainly curious of what they were talking about.
“What do think they are talking about?” Olivia asked, turning to Jiro who was standing beside her. Her mouth cracked into a smile immediately when she saw his face, making a different expression than the usual stoic one.
Peeking closer to his face, Olivia asked another question, “Are you jealous, Jiro?”
With her face being close to him, his attention was completely taken away from Yana and the driver. He took a step back to at least make a distance between him and Olivia.
This was the first time she had seen such expression from him so she was ecstatic from his response. Olivia stood straight and beamed happily at him.
“W-w-what did you say?” he asked.
“I asked if you are jealous.” Olivia plainly said still wearing a teasing smile.
“What am I supposed to feel if I’m jealous?” Jiro inquired, back with the passive face.
“Boring.” Olivia sulkily said. The smile she vanished into thin air. “Your response was so boring.”
Despite that he could not understand what Olivia was saying, he was glad that she was treating him ‘normally’. Even though he does not really have any reference to base from, except the way she had talked to Yana, he believed that this was how Olivia normally treats people.
However, the locals who were staring at them, knew very well that this Olivia Seria they were looking at now was different from the Olivia Seria they had seen before.
It was the first time they had seen her smile like that and the way she talked to this man who was standing near her was very special. There were no single man in Cephel had talked to her, nor to stay near her for a long time.
“There should be something special about that man.”
“Yes. Otherwise, Lady Seria would not look at him for a whole minute.”
“Could it be that the Lady has found her fated one when she visited Aquilla?”
Like this, rumors had started to spread across the whole town square. Meanwhile, the subject of the rumors remained oblivious of the rapidly spreading news.