Chapter 37

I heard a snap and my eyes instantly snapped open. My hand went to my dagger as I scanned the surroundings. I had been prepared if the knights tried something in the night. Oh, it was just one of the knights taking care of their horses. It looked like it was morning now. Only the adventurers, knights and some of the kids were awake. For the first time in a while, I performed adequate measures to keep my psi hidden. I had slacked off on that a lot since coming to this world, but now that I knew there was potential psi users like Rie here, I had to correct that bad habit.

I was about to get up when I remembered the girl that was still lying on my lap. Rie was mumbling something in her sleep so I bent down to hear.

“Papa, Mama, don’t go! Stay with me! Don’t leave!” Rie was saying. She was just repeating it over and over. I guess she’s having a nightmare. She had a line of tears running down her face that I hadn’t noticed before. Coa was awake and looking at Rie anxiously. She slithered out of Rie’s grasp and I watched as she rubbed against Rie’s face. Rie’s eyes shot open in response to the physical contact. Afterwards, she saw me and immediately buried her head into my chest and started sobbing. Coa was warbling at Rie as she had now climbed back up to my neck.

Why does this keep happening? It happened only a few days back with Myura and now again with this child. Do I just attract troubled souls? I did the only thing I could and stroked her short hair while whispering encouragement. Her brother had woken up and was giving me a death glare. It’s not my fault! I tried to convey that without words. He sighed and started packing up his blankets.

After a few minutes of crying, Rie calmed down. She was still sniffling and her eyes were a bit red, but otherwise she seemed okay. “Sorry, Miss Seri.” She murmured.

“Shh. It’s fine. You just had a nightmare. It’s no problem. It’s almost breakfast time, so how about you get ready for that? Then we’ll have to travel the rest of the way to the capital.” I replied. She nodded and started getting up. When I tried to follow suit, I realized my legs were numb. Ahh, that tingly feeling! I sent a rush of psi through my body and felt it immediately dissipate. Perfect. I stood up and helped Rie fold up the blankets. I wish I could use my own blankets but mine do stand out a bit because of their materials. Just like most of my stuff. I should have tried to make more medieval or renaissance style looking goods.

While we were eating breakfast, which was exceedingly simple like all the meals we’ve had the last day or so, a group of the girls came over to where Rie, her brother and I were eating. I was quite surprised by this turn of events. This was the first time any of the kids had come close to me since that night.

They sort of looked at each other like they were wondering who should speak up first before finally pushing the middle one forward. She looked shocked by this, but quickly regained herself. She nodded and then spoke. “Umm, can we see your little pet?”

So it’s Coa that brought them over. Before I could say anything, Coa herself rose up from her perch and trilled at the group.

“““Cute!””” The girls all said together.

I sighed and let Coa slither down my arm to my wrist like she had done for Rie before. The girls overcame the last of their fear and came closer together. “This is Coa. She’s never been crowded before, so try not to overwhelm her.”

“We’ll be careful!” The spokesgirl said. They descended on Coa like hunting dogs that had just found a fox. I heard Coa purring, so I guess she was enjoying it.

Leaving Coa to her new admirers and bearing in mind the loss of my left hand, I had to finish eating my porridge with just my right hand with the bowl sitting on my lap. I noticed Rie looking enviously and bitterly at the group with Coa. “Rie, you can play with Coa later and you got to play with her a bunch yesterday. Don’t be jealous.”

For the first time since I met her, she gave me a dirty look. What a change from the girl that was sobbing into my chest less than an hour ago!

After a few minutes the girls pulled back satisfied. Coa had relaxed so much from their attention that she had gone to sleep. The three girls curtsied to me and together said. “Miss Seri, we’re sorry for being scared of you. Thank you for saving us.”

I waved them off. “It’s fine. I didn’t save you to be thanked. It looks like we’re getting ready to go, you three should hurry back to your bags too.”

The girls turned and ran away. Even though they said that, they were still a bit uneasy around me. Rie on the other hand was grumbling quietly to herself. “How can they say Miss Seri is scary! Miss Seri is amazing and kind! Those morons should just-”

I bopped her lightly on the head to stop her. “Rie, those girls have every right to be afraid of me. If anything is odd, it’s that you were not scared of me at all.”

She tilted her head. “Why would I have been scared? All you did was kill evil people that deserved it. You should go around killing more of the evil people, especially all the evil adults!”

I bopped her again. She held her head with an injured expression. “Rie, killing people is not the answer to all problems. That’s not to say it doesn’t solve some of them, but there are times when other actions can provide much better results. It’s one of the things you’ll understand as you get older and see much more of the world. Sometimes you might have to accept working with someone you consider evil because the alternative is much worse.” I warned her.

“Have you really done that before, Miss Seri? Worked with an evil person?” Her eyes were wide as she asked.

“More times than I can count. Of course, sometimes those people tried to betray me after the work was done, which made it quite easy to just get rid of them. There are a lot of times though, where that wasn’t an option. I’m not going to kill an evil guy when he gives me valuable information that helps me save people, even if the only reason the guy did it was because it would destroy one of his competitors. I’ve just accepted that this is just the way the world works and move on my way. As you probably already know, the world is not always a nice place.” I said. She nodded gloomily. “Anyway, it looks like it’s time to go. We can chat more on the way and you can even hold Coa the whole time.” She immediately brightened back up. Coa serves a good role just as a pacifier for kids.

Rie took me up on my offer to chat immediately once she had the sleeping Coa in her arms and we were walking. “Miss Seri, do you have a lover?”

I stumbled. Lynn was laughing in my ear at my reaction. “Why is that the first question you ask!? I thought you wanted to know about my adventures!”

“My parents met while being adventurers, so I was just curious if you had someone like that too.” She replied.

I guess given those circumstances, it might seem like a relevant question to her. What should I say? I guess I’ll use my experience with Carol. Seri’s example is not fit for a child’s consumption. “I do have a lover, or maybe I should say I did have one. The relationship was a bit rocky.”

“What happened?” She asked.

“It’s kind of a long story. I assume even saying that, that you still want me to tell you?” She nodded. “Ok, I met her when we were both younger-”

“Miss Seri, your lover is another girl!?” Rie was shocked. I’m just intensely gratified that she didn’t shout it out for everyone to hear.

“Don’t interrupt me please.” She blushed, embarrassed. “Anyway, the both of us met each other when we were younger. Not quite when we were kids, but around when I was a bit older than you. We hit it off right away, but not in a romantic sense, just that of two really good friends. We did basically everything together. That changed rapidly when we got a bit older. We started getting awkward around each other. Not sure how we should interact, so we kind of stopped seeing each for a while. We still chatted occasionally, but never for very long.”

“You’re still not lovers yet! Continue the story!” She demanded.

“It took a while, but we finally got over that phase. We had been stuck together and things happened that took our relationship from friends to something else. I don’t think we were really lovers yet, sort of in between at that point. We started doing lover like things though. Going on dates and just spending a ton of time basically glued to each other. The problem came not long after that.” I was enjoying stringing this out.

“What problem!? Come on!” Rie was getting into it.

“I had to move away to another town. For the first time in years, we were going to be separated. We didn’t know what to do about it and she couldn’t come with me because she had a lot of responsibilities there, so we decided to end our relationship and say farewell.” I said.

“Is that how it ended?” Rie questioned.

“No, actually there’s still more. A few years later, I came back to that town and we met again. We immediately restarted our relationship and tried to act like nothing had changed between us. Except a lot had changed. We were both extremely busy with different things and it left very little time for us to be with each other. We naturally started to draw apart from each other and eventually we had a big blow out argument and separated once again.” I continued.

“Is there still more? Please tell me there’s more! You got back together again right!?” Rie requested.

“No, that’s basically the end. Over time, we slowly started getting along again and doing some things together. We were older and more mature and life had moved on. We were no longer as obsessed with only our own interests. Just recently we were going to try getting back together, but an event that was out of our control happened that pulled me away from home. It’s the main reason I’m stuck wandering around right now.” I finished.

“That’s sad. Do you miss her a lot?” Rie commented.

“Yep. I miss her a whole lot. I just luckily have a really good friend that is there for me right now or I might have done something very bad.” I said.

“Do you mean Coa?” Rie asked with a tilt of her head.

“Coa is there for me too, but no I’m talking about someone else. She’s my very best friend in the whole world.” I answered. Lynn tossed out a [Yep I am!]

“Can I meet her? She sounds interesting if she’s your best friend!” Rie queried.

“Possibly? We’ll have to wait and see.” I replied.

“Okay. Tell me about some of your adventures now!” Rie demanded.

“Fine. Let’s see, what kind of adventures do you want me to share? I’ve been on way too many so some kind of specification would be good. Do you want to hear an action filled story or maybe one about me exploring a mysterious place or possibly something else?” I questioned.

“Lots of action and with treasure at the end!” Rie answered.

“Ok. I think I have a good story in mind then. I was traveling by ship. I needed to get to a certain place and the only way to get there was by using that particular travel method. Everything was going fine, but on the fifth day at sea a group of pirates attacked the ship. The ship was well protected but the group of pirates were too large and they eventually overcame the ship’s escorts and captured the ship and all passengers, myself included.” I said.

“But you’re so strong! How could pirates capture you!?” Rie asked.

“At the time I was travelling pretty lightly armed and without a lot of my gear due to regulations that the ship had, so I couldn’t put up an adequate fight. To be honest, rather than fighting, I gave up straight away. My identity I was using was fake and I was travelling while disguised as a rich merchant. This was good since they underestimated me, plus they killed all the actual soldiers and guards on board the ship right away. Had they realized my true identity, I would have been fighting with a very large handicap.

“So in the end, the other passengers and I were taken aboard the pirate ships and locked up to be transported to their base. Their base was hidden inside a small island cave. The cave complex was large so there was enough space in there for all their ships and more than enough room for all of them and their booty to be stored. We were all moved to the prison area of the caves and then left there under watch by a few guards. Once everything was settled, I started planning out my escape.

“My escape plan was pretty simple. First, I would have to escape the cell I was residing in. That wasn’t too difficult. When one of the guards brought me food, I influenced him to not notice me leaving the room beside him. The pirates had gotten into the routine of only bringing one nutritious meal a day so I knew once I was given food, I would have about a day of time to work with. The pirates had slacked off and didn’t even bother to put psi negating collars on the prisoners or their own guards. This was a sign that my fake identity documentation were elaborate and were holding up well. They said I was only a middling practitioner of psi after all and I had been keeping my psi tightly bound and buried so it was undetectable. Once I was out of the cell, I started my reconnaissance. I had scoped the place out on the way to prison area, but as is usually the case, the prison was cut off from any sensitive or important areas. After all, the last thing you want is your prisoners to be able to easily arm themselves in the case of a breakout.

“With a combination of sneaking and psi use to keep myself hidden. I started moving around the base freely. The first thing I did was taking note of where the pirates were congregated. Quite a number of them were in the dock area checking over their ships and some were in their rooms sleeping. Some were exercising and training. I couldn’t find the pirate leader or some of the other key personnel so I assume they were in the more secure section of the base that I couldn’t get into. That would be a problem I would have to find a solution for. The other thing I checked on was how often some of the groups were required to check-in. The prison guards had to check in every hour, while some of the other pirates checked-in every few hours with progress reports. The only exceptions to this were the pirates training, eating, or sleeping.” I described.

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“Miss Seri, were you really so easily moving around a pirate base? How did you do all that without being seen?” Rie exclaimed.

“For one, I’m very, very good at sneaking around. For two, the pirates weren’t taking adequate precautions for psi use. Most of the pirates were psi users themselves so some kind of psi negation field would negatively affect them as well.”

“Is this power that common then?” Rie interrupted to ask. “I thought it was special…”

”Where I’m from, it is a common ability. That doesn’t seem to be the case in this area though. You’re the only one I’ve seen. Let’s continue with the story. As is usually the case, they were pretty overconfident that their security was top-notch even with that demerit. They were right, they were a lot of secure areas that would have dissuaded a lot of other more normal intruders, but I was not a normal intruder by any means. With my explorations complete, I had arrived at a workable plan. I waited for the work shift to change and then snuck into the sleeping quarters for the pirates. I silently killed each and every one of the sleeping pirates. I knew that no one would be coming to these quarters for another six to eight hours when the new shift ended. With these fifty pirates dead, I had eliminated about a quarter of my enemies in one fell swoop. I had also acquired a number of keys that would get me into some of the areas that had been inaccessible before. I immediately made my way into those areas. I was looking for a certain, very special room.”

“What kind of place were you looking for, Miss Seri? Where the weapons were kept?” Rie asked.

“I had actually already located that place, but I didn’t really need a weapon and the security there was a lot tougher than anywhere else. If I tried to break in there I would have alerted the whole base. No, I was looking for the room that was most rich in magical energy. Most pirates had a room like that they would use for a lot of reasons. Powering up their magic and tools as it were. After that I had to look for the special guard station. Once I located both and figured out the best route to take between them, I went to the magic room and performed some very special sabotage. I set up a certain problem that would completely destroy the magic in that room in a certain amount of time. I had to give it time rather than doing it right away, because a very normal configuration for bases like this was to have some kind of detection spell in place that would notice if the magic ended and put the base into a state of emergency.

“Once my sabotage was prepared, I rushed through the base back to the guard station and infiltrated it using one of the keys I had collected. Once inside I neutralized all the guards in there and started sabotaging that room as well. I disabled all the special security magics that were controlled from that room and changed how some of the spells worked. When the magic ended, the base would not be going into alert, but would instead everything would unlock and open for me. Once everything was prepared there, I returned to the dock area. I snuck into one of the larger ships and eliminated all the pirates in there. I would need one of the ships to transport me and the other prisoners away once the pirates were taken care of. I couldn’t let the pirates destroy their ships once the action started.

“After that was done, I returned to the prison area to be ready for the show. I made it just in time as the magic ended and all the magic lights and everything went off. I quickly eliminated the group of pirates guarding the other prisoners. Afterwards I let the prisoners out and gave them the weapons the pirates had been carrying. I told the prisoners to wait here and that they would have to protect themselves. They made a barricade out of some of the cell doors that I happily tore out for them. With the prisoners taken care of the best that I could, I returned to the docks and eliminated all the pirates in all the ships. That didn’t take very long. It seemed like some of the pirates had left the ships when the magic was cancelled, possibly to find out what had gone wrong. That was fine with me. I then went to the weapon room and gathered some equipment I would be needing.

“Honestly, the rest of the escape was pretty boring. I mopped up the rest of the pirates including their leaders easily now that all the preparations had been completed successfully. I came back to the prisoners, and we boarded one of the ships and fled from the pirate base. Once we were back at sea, we were able to head to our original destination. Along the way we met up with some ships from our destination that had been searching for the lost ship and they escorted us the rest of the way. That’s how that adventure concluded.” I finished with a satisfied nod.

“Wait! Miss Seri, you didn’t mention any treasure!” Rie complained.

“Oh right. So once the pirates were defeated, I went to their treasure room with some of the prisoners. We planned on emptying it and taking it all with us. To be fair a lot of what was in there was originally stolen from the ship we had been on anyway. There was a lot of stuff in there that wasn’t though. I found something very amazing in there. Something that told me that the pirates had raided some kingdom’s ships. It was a great treasure. I took it of course. I considered it my reward for saving people. If whoever lost it wanted it back, then they’d have to find out I had it first, which to be frank was very unlikely.” I stated.

“But what was it? You didn’t mention what it was that you found!” Rie was glaring at me.

I laughed and then pointed to my fancy choker. Then I rolled up my sleeve of my shirt and showed her the bracer too. I didn’t show her the thigh piece since that would involve raising my skirt.

“Just jewelry? I expected something better than that from what you said.” Rie grumbled.

I bent down and whispered in her. “That’s only because I haven’t told you what they are. They are very, very special magical charms. The kind of charms that royalty might wear.”

Rie’s eyes went wide. “That powerful!?”

“Yep, that powerful. They help me out a great deal. You have to keep them a secret, alright?” Well, not like it would matter if she told anyone. She thinks they’re magical when they’re psi based instead. If people learn they’re magical that might cause people to try to ‘dispel’ the effect which shouldn’t have any effect on them. I wasn’t totally sure about that, but it was a good hypothesis for now based on what I’ve observed. I mean it’s tech powered by psi, so unless they can damage the tech, it’s pretty damn unlikely to do anything. The materials on the equipment are actually even tougher than the shield it provides. I’ve fired plasma shots at these things without causing a single speck of damage.

“I promise.” Rie answered solemnly.

“Good girl. That story took a lot longer than I expected. We’re almost there.” I said. I finally took note of the farmland we were passing by. There were orchards as well. The number of people working those gigantic farms was impressive. I saw that many of the men and women that were out there had collars like I had seen on the slaves back in Knightvalley. The collars were mainly white marked ones though there were some green ones mixed in too. If I remember right, whites were people that had to work to pay off their taxes and greens were people that had committed too many smaller crimes without reforming. “Are you satisfied with that story? I don’t think I have time to tell another.” I asked Rie.

“Yeah, I think so. Thanks, Miss Seri.” Rie was eying the city walls apprehensively.

I wasn’t sure what to tell her to make her feel better. I was still unsure about offering to take her with me so I didn’t want to say that to her. Right now I think she would jump at it, but I think she should at least try going to the school too. It might be good for her and she might discover something she actually wants to do in life, rather than following around a horrible monster like myself. I shook my head at that thought. I can’t keep feeling guilty about killing those bandits. They killed people, so it’s just karmic punishment that they faced the same fate. At least that was what I was telling myself.

To get my mind off that topic, I directed a wave at one of the knights that was nearby and decided to ask about something I had noticed about the city design.

The male knight rode closer and spoke. “Was something amiss, Lady Seri?”

“I had a question about the city.” I pointed to a section of the city wall where a river could be seen flowing out and into the farmland. “Does a river run through the city or something?”

“That is not the case. Inside that section of the city is the original farmland that provided for the population. There is a magic tree that generates water planted there and the water is used to irrigate the fields.” He explained.

“So then if the farmland is in there behind the walls, why all the farmland and houses outside?” I asked.

“The farmland in there was only enough for the original population of the capital at the time of the Founder. As the population expanded along with the city, it became unable to support the city, so the land around the city was also turned into farmland. Even this amount of farmland wouldn’t be enough if it wasn’t for the large number of druids that work for the Empire.” He said.

“I understand. Thanks for explanation. Then the rest of the city with it’s wide levels are for everything else?” I was examining the city’s design closely. It looked like the city had three separate levels.

“The first district is for commoners and where most of the businesses in the capital operate. Most of the larger businesses are on the other side of the city near the port to take advantage of the goods flowing in. The second district is for nobles and the richer members of the Empire. The training facilities for the various orders are also in that district. The Imperial Library is located in the second district as well. The last district is where the palace and all the buildings relating to the governing of the Empire are located.” He described.

“Thanks. That was very helpful. Oh! I just remembered something. When are the Founding Anniversary festivities going to start?” I questioned.

“They will begin the day after tomorrow and then last for a full month following.” He answered.

“Thanks once again.” I turned my focus back to Rie who was still looking at the city silently. The problem is that while her expression was blank, she was starting to squeeze Coa. Coa was struggling to escape her grasp, but Rie wasn’t paying attention. “Rie, stop! You’re hurting her.”

“Huh? Oh! Sorry Coa! I didn’t mean to hurt you!” She relaxed her grip and start petting Coa in apology.

“Rie, are you that worried about going to the academy?” She dipped her head in response and didn’t answer. “Is there anything you’re particularly worried about? I can guess that it’s going to be something all new for you, but is there something else?” I was respecting her to not just try to look in her head for the answers.

“...don’t want…” She mumbled, but that was all I could hear of what she had said.

“Are we going to do this again? I will not force you, but I will listen and offer advice if you’re troubled about something.” I told her.

She shook her head and didn’t speak again.

As we neared the city walls, I could hear the hustle and bustle. It was definitely a loud and lively city as one would expect from a city of this size. When we got to the city gate, the escort knights spoke to the guards and we got passed through the gate with only a simple check. The gate was much more elaborate than I had expected. There was a large lion motifs around it and two large banners on either side with the same coat of arms I had seen back in the fortress. That of a lion standing atop a dragon.

The knights were apparently going to escort us until the kids reached their destination. Then they would return to other duties. One of the female knights, Tilly, was offering to help me find an inn once that was concluded. I decided to accept the offer for now. I was planning to look for another inn afterwards. I wasn’t sure I wanted the empire to know exactly what inn I was staying at. I mean I’m sure they’ll find it out later anyway, but I wasn’t going to trust any inn that they directly took me to.

The knights led us to the first inner wall and we passed through that security check as simply as the previous one. Apparently the academy the kids were going to was considerably famous. A large part of that fame was due to the wealth and connections they had, but an even larger part was because they accepted and brought in orphans as charitable cases. Apparently once every half dozen years or so, they’d gather together a group of orphans and give them the finest education available. The orphans could then go on to do anything they wanted after graduation. Some became adventurers, but most ended up in positions working for the guilds, or possibly some of the nobles would hire them.

When we finally got near the academy, I was quite impressed by the size. This school might be as large as the high school I went to back on Earth that had a few thousand students! The building designs looked much more like those of a fancy mansion rather than what might belong to a school. It even had a decently high wall running around it and guards at the elaborate metal gate.

As we got to the close to the gate, I felt a tug from my side. Rie was there with her head down. She looked up with tears in her eyes and that were beginning to stream down her cheeks. “I want to stay with you! I don’t want you to go!” She whispered. She stepped forward and hugged me.

I felt my heart ache as I looked down at her. To be honest, I really didn’t want to leave her either. I felt a connection with her for some reason. Maybe it was just because she was the first psi user I had met here, but there was something about her that told me that she should be by my side. Possibly it was just my intuition popping up, but it was there all the same.

I was afraid though. Could I really expose this child to the life I led? Even if she was willing to come with me, even if I was willing to accept exposing her to danger, could I let her witness how truly horrible of a person I can be? Plus once I leave the world, there’s all those other horrors out there. Witnessing those bandits be dismembered was really only the tip of the iceberg of the kinds of things she might experience.

Without even realizing it, I had come to a decision. It was just plainly obvious now that I thought about it. This wasn’t a hard call at all. First, I needed to ask her some questions to see just how serious she was about this desire. “Rie, would you come with me if it meant separating and possibly never seeing your brother again?”

She was stunned by my question. She stepped back from embracing me. “I don’t know. I don’t want to leave Brother either. Can’t Miss Seri take both of us with you?”

“I’m not sure. You already heard today from my story how dangerous adventures I go on can be. Despite how I breezed over it, that was an extremely dangerous situation. Had I made a single error at any point, I would have gotten killed. Taking care of two kids at all time would not be easy. I think I might be able to handle one, but even with how good I am, I’m not positive I could protect two people all the time. There’s one other element to this too. Even now, your brother still doesn’t trust me. That hasn’t changed one bit. If he came with me with that attitude, I can only see it causing problems.” I explained.

Rie looked even more depressed than she did a moment ago. She couldn’t find any words to say to me. She lowered her head and I could hear her starting to cry anew.

I put my hand under her chin and lifted her head so she was looking me in the eye. With my other hand I wiped her tears away. “Rie, don’t be sad alright? I’m going to make a very important vow with you, so I need you to listen.” She nods in response to my serious tone. “I’m going to be in the capital for one month. I will come back before I leave and check up on you and how your time here is going. If at that time, you still wish to come with me, then I will accept both you and your brother, if he wishes to come. Even despite my own misgivings over this, I will do this for you. If you decide at that time, that you do not want to come with me and would rather stay here at school, then that is also your choice to make.”

She sniffled but gave me a determined look. “Okay, I can do that! I can try this out for one month, Miss Seri. I guarantee that even after a month that I still will want to go with you! My feelings won’t change at all!” She quieted down before continuing. “I want to go on adventures like my parents. My dad always looked so happy when he told me his stories. My mom would scold him, but she always was happy hearing him tell them too. Miss Seri as well. When you were telling me that story, you had a smile on your face. I want to have my own stories too. I want happy stories that I can tell someone else with a smile.”

I patted her head. “I see. That’s a really marvelous goal, Rie.” I saw the gates to the academy open and a few men and women came out. They were wearing very nice clothing, so they were probably administrators or maybe instructors. Just for good measure, I tossed out a mental link to them. I didn’t catch a single sinister thought about the kids. They were glad the kids had arrived safe and sound. They were dismayed when they heard about the bandit abduction and their shock was entirely genuine. I had had a small suspicion that the school might have set it up, but if they did then these people at least had no knowledge of it. The kids were starting to be ushered to come inside. Rie and her brother were the only two that weren’t immediately following along. “Rie, it’s time to say farewell for now.”

Rie simply looked at me with tears appearing in her eyes once again. She gave me back Coa who returned to her customary spot. Coa chirped at Rie conveying for her to stay safe. “Miss Seri, please absolutely come in a month okay? Please!” She pleaded quietly.

“Don’t worry Rie, I’ll keep my vow no matter what might happen. You can count on it.” I assured her.

Her brother stepped up to her. “Come on Rie, we can’t hold up everything anymore. Look, the people with the academy aren’t happy that we’re just standing here.” He took her hand and led her away and into the school. Rie looked back at me and waved.

I returned the wave and simply watched as the gates to the academy closed behind her and her brother. I stood there for a few minutes afterwards. I had to fight with my desire to immediately trespass and take her back. I couldn’t do that though. Rie should have the chance to at least experience school first. It was always possible she might end up enjoying it after all. Kids don’t usually enjoy learning though. I couldn’t help myself as I felt myself smile in response to that thought.

Well, it was time to get back to work. I’ve got a criminal organization I need to locate and possibly deal with in some way. Then there’s also a library to visit so I can research about this world. Last but not least, there’s a tower I want to climb. I took a quick glance at the impressive tower that soared up into the sky.

Then in a month, there was now an important promise that needed to be kept. I think this was going to turn out to be an exciting month. With my thoughts now in order, I signaled for Tilly to show me to that inn.