Being granted with her request, Yana was thankful from the bottom of her heart. She really thought that she and Jiro were bound to travel an unknown distance on foot.

Both of them were now sitting opposite to their gracious savior. Yana in front of Olivia, and Jiro sitting across a flute and a small brown pouch bag laying above the cushioned seat.

Their savior, the damsel of the carriage, is a beautiful young maiden with blonde hair, which was tied into a bun. Near her ears, strands of fashionably curled hair were freely dangling. Her eyes were a pair of exquisite emeralds. Her nose is small and perfectly fit the shape of her face.

In contrast to her beauty her attire was a simple white and brown long-sleeved dress. The dress reminded Yana of the dresses worn by Cinderella when she was serving her step-mother and step-sisters, except that what Olivia was wearing was not tattered and untidy. It was plainly simple.

As for where they were now, the interior of the carriage appeared to be first-class in design. The paneled wall was draped with red silk-like paddings with black threads crisscrossing over it, in which formed a large diamonds of rubies. Above, the wooden ceiling had an elegant carving of patterns, and at the center of it, a white bulb flower was hanging in the air.

Sinking deep on her seat, Yana could not stop her sigh. Sleeping in a seated posture did not help her aching body to relax last night and they had to walk again first thing in the morning so she had not taken a real rest yet. Their seats were comfortably soft and completely on par with the theme of this small room. If they room had not been small and the notion of moving was not evident, Yana would believe that they were inside a luxury room in a five-star hotel.

At first, their travel started slow and gradually became a fast one. Olivia had explained that an oyomu could not reach its top speed instantly.

“It is the exact same behavior when you want to stop an oyomu. It would not stop the moment you want to stop it. It needs to decelerate first before it fully stop.” Olivia flashed a smile charmingly. “That is why I am curious. How did you stop our oyomu?”

Olivia was speaking a different language but Yana understood her perfectly. It was not really a surprising fact, she had already read a lot of light novel series and witnessed this cliché a lot of times where the summoned have the capability to understand the language of the world he was summoned to. She had seen enough of it that she had already came up with the term ‘Babel phenomenon’ to name it.

Yana thought that the particular phenomenon was simply for the sole convenience of the writer, but in this circumstance of her playing the role of the summoned one right at this moment, the thing she thought of as a usual plot-hole had become very helpful.

Thankful for the convenient ability, she replied, “It’s hard to explain, but we kind of understood each other. And then there was…”

Her voice trailed off, thinking of that scene in her mind. Should she tell her about it?

“What?” Olivia urged Yana to continue but Yana simply shook her head. Olivia pondered about it for a bit and nodded then changed their topic. “What were you doing here in the middle of the forest? Don’t you know how dangerous this place is?”

This time Jiro spoke up. Reciting the story they had agreed upon last night. “We lost our way here. Our boat sank when we were finding our way towards uh…” He glance at Yana for assistance.

“We lost our way to-towards uh… uh…” She was searching for a name of a place but what she could say at this time. Tokyo? Beijing? Paris? New York?  Those places do not exist here!

“Aquilla?” Olivia filled in for her. Curiosity could be seen in her eyes, which Yana took noted of.

“This carriage and the carriages you had seen earlier came from there.” Olivia suddenly wore a melancholic expression. “Maybe, by now, everything is already destroyed by the vaguras.”

“Vaguras?” Yana repeated in a serious tone.

Olivia took Yana’s expression as concern, which was not. It was Yana’s interest on the topic that painted seriousness in her face. Everything she could get from Olivia will help her to adapt in this foreign world, so she was listening attentively to what Olivia was telling her.

“Yes, vaguras. Those beasts with inhuman strength and knowledge of war. Legends say they were the descendants of Vega, one of the three powerful countries in this continent in ancient time. They were known as a barbaric country, continuously sieging territories until they end up to fight the peaceful Altari which resulted to the biggest war in Corona’s history. After that war, Queen Ruth, the queen of Daneb, casted a curse on the whole race of Vega as their punishment, thus led to the existence of vaguras.” Olivia found herself ecstatic about her lecture that she felt embarrassed to her guests. “Oh… I have been babbling about a lot of things. I’m sorry.”

Yana shook her head and instead thanked Olivia in return, adding, “I think, I already saw one but it could be different to what you were referring.”

“Describe it to me then.” Olivia offered for a confirmation.

“If you say so. Uhm… It has a bulky body, probably as tall as me. Its body was covered with brown fur… Sharp rows of teeth, it was also wearing a wooden armor.” Yana intentionally avoided to give clear-cut descriptions such as, the creature’s resemblance to a boar for she does not know if there were any boars nor pigs in this place.

Olivia affirmatively nodded. “Your description fits a vagura’s physique. Probably, what you have seen was a scout or an exiled vagura. Reports says that these mountain forests became habitat to exiled vaguras that is why, it is a surprise for me to encounter someone in this place. Natives know that this area is not supposed to be trekked on.”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

What Olivia had said was not a surprise to Yana since she had the experience that proves how dangerous this area is. She just smiled and uttered an unnecessary lie, “Thankfully we did not come across to one.”

Jiro probed a questioning look at her, which she ignored.

Meanwhile, Olivia has her right eyebrow raised. “Hm? Then, how did you know how a vagura looks like?”

With this, Yana was caught off guard. She averted her eyes from Olivia’s curious stare and she was not able to say anything as a form of reply.

Stupid.

“I understand.” The words came from Olivia’s mouth. She didn’t state anything about what she understood but her eyes were on Yana, whose eyes were shifting from left and right and back to left. “Rest assure, I would not push you to speak of everything, if you do not wish to.”

Olivia found her guests to be an amusing pair of people. Their clothing was something she had never seen in books nor in real life before. Also, what the man named Jiro had said was an obvious lie. There’s no way they looked like victims of shipwreck, their clothes might be in a rowdy shape but their bodies looked healthy on first sight.

From where they had met each other, it would take the two of them five days’ worth of walking to reach that point from the nearest shore. And judging from their actions earlier, they know nothing about the land of Corona so they would likely get lost in the forest and probably would not be able to reach that place because of hunger or meeting vaguras while wandering around. But they have encountered one. Olivia was sure of this, thus it piqued her curiosity even more.

With what their host has said, Yana was ashamed of herself. What am I doing? I need all the help I could have now.

Yana bowed her head down and apologized, “I’m sorry for lying to you, after being in debt with your kindness, I had done such thing. But believe me, it’s not that we don’t trust you. It’s just… Our circumstances are hard to believe in.”

Olivia simply replied to Yana. “I will listen and decide for myself.”

And so, Yana told her everything. About them, coming from a different world. About being chased by a vagura to their deaths. She spoke of everything except with what happened earlier with the oyomu. When she had finished telling all of the recent events, she saw Olivia’s eyes glinting in excitement.

“A different world?” The thrill in her voice was hard not to notice. She looked like a kid who found a new toy after she woke up. “Please, tell me more about it!”

Both Yana and Jiro awkwardly smiled at her. Their expectation was way off the chart but this had turned to a positive side for them. At the very least, they had met someone who was kind enough to let them inside their personal vehicle.

Yana’s first impression to Olivia was that she was an affluent lady with prim-proper manners and short temper, but during the time they had talk about Earth and this world, she saw how much of a nerd Olivia was.

Yana had learned a lot of things about Corona, the continent they were in. She also learned that the plausible cause of how they escaped the vagura is that they had safely reach past the border of its territory.

Based on Olivia, exiled vaguras were usually found alone, owning a certain territory of where to hunt and they would stay there and respect others’ territories. There were rare occasions that they were sighted by pair, it was assumed that they were a household of vagura, but no one has seen a young vagura so this was just a speculation of hunters and guards.

Because of this exchange of information, both Yana and Olivia got to know each other better that they had chatted continuously and laughed heartily during their travel.

Olivia also promised Yana to give her a tour in Cephel once they arrived, which Yana looked forward to.

Jiro, who watched these two maidens talk like they were long-time friends who had not seen each other for a long, was silently listening to them. Smiling, but somehow, in his heart, the emptiness in him became a gaping hole and that pitch-black hole haunted him.

“What about you?” Olivia had turned to the only man in the cabin. “You have been quiet for the whole time.”

Yana also turned to Jiro, and the look on his face stung her heart.

For he was wearing a crestfallen smile as he was staring at them. In his eyes, lingering envy could be seen. Envy for having memories to talk about.

Surprised of the sudden attention, Jiro blinked repeatedly not sure of what to say, “I… I don’t have anything to tell you…” his voice faded off, not knowing how to address the damsel.

“Olivia. You can call me by my name.” And with concern she asked Jiro, “What do you mean by not having anything to tell? Why would you say that?”

“I… have no memories of our world.” He timidly answered, looking down on his knees.

Olivia blinked repeatedly, digesting what she had heard. “Oh… I see… I am sorry to hear that.”

Both her sincerity and sympathy were genuine and for respecting his feelings, Olivia had decided to continue their travel in silence.