The ‘humble’ thing that was the house Prince Zayr had bought for us was about as humble as I'd expected the gift of a prince to be. Which was to say, not at all.
Standing at a height so tall I’d mistaken it for some kind of hotel, the thing stood in a neighborhood far more affluent than I would have expected a border town to have. The community was gated off, and within was almost an entirely different town. The streets were spacious and well paved, the people were all mannered and dressed well – even the adventurers – and opulence shone on the surface of every open patio cafe and luxury mansion that lined the main street.
Our house was, as with the rest in the neighborhood, a wonder of architecture, a perfect melding of swooping gray stone arches and verdant vines that hugged the surfaces of every wall and pillar.
Our escort stopped at the gates of our mansion, turning to us with a smile. “Well, here you are. The young lord sincerely hopes you find his gift to your liking, and would be extremely pleased if you would consider maintaining the friendship in return.”
I suppressed the smile that wanted to take over my face and nodded with as much sincerity as I could manage. “The house looks absolutely amazing,” I said without a hint of a lie. “Better than anywhere I’ve ever lived in my life. And, of course, we’d be more than happy to continue being Prince Zayr’s friends. We’d have done so even without such an expensive gift.”
The man seemed slightly displeased at my casual mention of Prince Zayr’s name, but he hid it well. And I wasn’t in the mood to correct myself; as much as I liked the gift, I wasn’t about to treat the boy with more respect than I believed he deserved – and the escort was lucky I was even adding ‘Prince’ in front of the boy’s name.
“I’m sure the young prince will be overjoyed to hear that,” the man responded as he produced a key from his pocket. “Now, here you go. The keys are yours to keep, for as long as you want. They’re yours for good.”
I smiled and took the keys from him, nodding my thanks. “Make sure to tell the prince that we appreciate the gift very much.”
The man nodded. “I will.”
And with that, the man bowed once more and took his leave, setting Ren and I free to explore our new home – which we did, with the unrestrained abandon of children having been gifted complete and utter reign over a mansion.
The first thing I did was run myself a bath in the pool-sized tub, which was an experience as blissful as I’d imagined it would be every day in the forest, the hot water as delicious on my skin as I’d dreamed it would be.
The second thing I did was actually explore. Ren and I walked the lengths of every hallway in the house, ducking into rooms and walk-in closets, gleefully finding hidden doors leading into hidden rooms, investigating every cupboard in the fully furnished kitchen, and testing every one of the king-sized beds with a few jumps.
Every bit of the house was drenched in more luxury than I had thought possible, and it was beyond my understanding how Prince Zayr could have bought a house like this as a gift.
Two hours after we’d started, Ren and I lay on a square sofa in the third floor’s living room. The sofa was so big that the both of us could sprawl out completely and still not touch, and was as soft as I'd always thought a cloud’s hug would be.
“This is amazing, huh,” I remarked after a moment of silence, indulging in the velvety feel of the sofa as I stared up at the ceiling.
“I didn’t think a house could be so luxurious,” Ren agreed. “Especially in a world that doesn’t seem to be as advanced as Earth – at least, in terms of technology.”
“Honestly, it doesn’t look very advanced, but they do have some pretty cool stuff here,” I said. “I mean, toilets?! I didn’t think I’d find another one for the rest of my life.”
Ren chuckled from wherever he lay on the sofa, somewhere to my left. “Yeah, that’s fair. I guess with properly researched magic and Artes, it wouldn’t be so hard to reach a similar level as Earth, even if they haven’t had the same amount of time to develop.”
“I’d bet being connected to a wider and more advanced universe probably sped things up a bunch for this society, too,” I added.
“Speaking of which,” Ren started, “we should probably do a bit of research on this society, at some point. It’d be a good idea to get some kind of idea on the general political landscape of this kingdom, and as much of the world as we can, really. Especially if we’re planning on keeping up some kind of relationship with Zayr. We should at least have some kind of idea about what we’re getting into, y’know?”
“It’d been a lot easier if we’d gotten our chips fully synchronized,” I complained. “Stupid machine.” One of the finalizing steps for getting our adventurer badges was getting our chips synchronized properly, which would get us full access to all the things that came with the chip. Included with which was access to what Loretta explained to be an interconnected database of adventurers both local and global, which would no doubt contain troves of information that would help tremendously in adjusting to the new society.
Unfortunately for us, the machine at the branch we’d been to was broken at the time we went, and would only be getting repaired sometime in the coming weeks.
“Well, there’s no rush, really,” Ren said. “It’s a good idea, but we have time. We still have just under four months till the entrance exam starts, right?”
“Yeah, that’s true. I guess we can just relax for a bit here, then, huh? No point leaving this beauty of a house behind just to go camp in some inn at the capital.”
“That sounds like a great plan,” Ren said with that special kind of enthusiasm he seemed to reserve only for sleep. “I could do with a few weeks of sleeping on an actual bed.”
“Oh? Mister tough assassin man can’t handle a little camping in the woods?” I teased, but I was answered by a comically loud snore. I waited a moment, sure that a response was going to come, but the room remained silent save for the occasional snore.
“Ren?!” I called out in an incredulous voice. Again, only a snore answered me. “There’s no way you actually fell asleep that fast,” I said, trailing off at the end as I realized I really was only talking to myself.
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“Unbelievable,” I muttered to myself again, a small smile on my face as I rolled over to my side and settled in for a nap as well. Before I knew it, the thick blanket of exhaustion had wrapped me up, and I was lost to the depths of my sleep.
—
Two weeks flashed by in a whirlwind of luxury and exploration, relaxation and a surprising amount of new friends. Prince Zayr joined us almost every day, taking us around the city as we met different people – some old, some young, all socially of great importance. I was reluctant at first, finding it hard to suppress my bias against both Zayr and his cohort of fawning, middling nobles. But as the time passed, I found a surprising amount of sincerity in the people – once I got past the fake compliments and obvious attempts at sucking up.
And most surprising of all was Zayr, who showed an impressive amount of integrity and personality over the course of the two weeks. He was spoiled, unsurprisingly, but he seemed to be genuine in his wish to be actual friends – and after seeing the kind of people that surrounded him usually, I could see why. Even the kids our age that were a part of his entourage were horribly boring, so engrossed in the social going-ons of their lives that it was all they could think to talk about.
And they were weak. Strong, because they had to be to keep up appearances, but so terribly weak in reality. They’d been trained to duel each other as social competition, and they’d been coddled with potions and elixirs to toughen up their bodies, but when it came to actual fights, they were useless. And Zayr, who told Ren and I all that in confidence, I came to find, really hated people like that. People who postured strength without actually having any.
So when Zayr handed me an official invitation to a royal hunt, one on which he was planning on taking his cohort of young noblemen and women, I was surprised. Most of the outings he invited the two of us to were boring tea parties and the like. Something like a hunt was much more up my alley, but I’d figured that wouldn’t so much be the case for most of his friends.
Still, surprised as I was, I obviously agreed, since I was almost itching to get back out and fight something. After the constant daily fights I’d gone through in the forest, a little time spent in civil society had done wonders, but I quickly found it bored my mind to the edge of insanity.
My mind had acclimated to the adrenaline of life and death battles, and being deprived of that high made the world feel horribly slow, like time was trudging through mud. The only thing that had kept me sane the past week were the mindless but slightly amusing rumors the nobles passed around like hot potatoes.
So I was in a giddy mood as the morning of the hunt came – though, to be perfectly honest, it was hard not to be giddy when you woke up laden with the weight of downy blankets, a weight that pressed you down into a mattress that hugged you with what I imagined was what a mother’s hug would feel like.
I dressed quickly, slipping out of my silk pyjamas and into my daily clothing, forgoing the armor because I didn’t want to show up overdressed. As determined as I was to hunt something big, I was sure the others would treat the outing as just another party.
And I was right, of course. I showed up to the plain just outside the east exit of the city and found a colorful party of dresses and suits that offered no mobility or defense.
Zayr was the only one who was different, and starkly so, having gone to the other extreme of dress. Encased in a stunning scarlet set of armor forged perfectly to fit his form, he looked every bit what I imagined the heroic knights of fairy tales looked like. He stood off to the side with his attention on his mount, far enough away from the crowd to be out of earshot, likely to dissuade any of the nobles from bothering him before the hunt began.
“Well, it’s good to see someone here is taking this hunt seriously,” I said by way of greeting as I approached the boy, who was combing his fingers through the mane of his ride, a majestic beast that looked like some cross between wolf and horse, with scarlet fur and a flowing mane, claws like daggers and snout shaped like a crocodile's.
The boy laughed before he even turned around to face us, a great big smile adorning his face as he did. “Why do you think I was so glad to have met the two of you here?” he asked in response.
I chuckled. “I was surprised that your friends would agree to a hunt, of all things, but looking at them now, I understand.” Given the amount of guards they’d each brought, it was obvious that the hunt would be more a competition of how well the hired hands could hunt, rather than the kids themselves.
Zayr shrugged. “Let them do as they do. I was starting to lose my mind from the boredom – I needed this hunt.”
Ren and I nodded in agreement. “I know exactly what you mean,” I said. “Honesty, I don’t know how you do it.” Ren and I at least had the freedom to decline invitations and go explore the city on our own, which we’d done plenty of. But being the star of the party meant there was no ditching out on parties.
Zayr smiled wryly. “It’s a struggle, trust me. But, hey, a lifetime of practice tends to help, y’know.”
“I imagine it would,” I agreed with a chuckle. “Still, I don’t envy your job in the least. Honestly, I don’t even know why you even put up with them.”
Ren nodded next to me. “Actually, yeah, why do you put up with them?” he asked. “Aren’t you, like, way more important than these guys? Can’t you just not deal with them?”
Zayr chuckled at Ren’s question. “Oh, how I wish I could. And yeah, you’re right, these nobles have nothing tying me to them – I could order them all away with a word and they wouldn’t dare show their faces around me again.” As arrogant as the words sounded, Zayr said them without a hint of pride, as if he was just commenting on a fact of the world. And he was right, too.
“But I don’t put up with them because of what they offer me,” the young prince continued. “I put up with them to prove a point to my family.”
“Oh?” That was the first I was hearing anything of Zayr’s family, and I’d long been curious about them.
“Yeah, this whole trip, actually, is kind of about that – of course, there’s a whole bunch of other political reasons I won’t bore you with, but one of the reasons I’m on this trip is to prove to my father that I can handle networking and politics. I’ve been very politics-averse for much of my life, and it disappointed my father, who always said social acumen was equally as important as brute strength when it came to ruling a territory. So he sent me out on this trip to visit and gain the support of smaller nobles to prove to him that I’m capable of doing so.”
“Hah, that sounds annoying,” I said with a laugh. "Well, a father's approval is a hard thing to earn, I hear."
Zayr smiled at my teasing, a strange, almost sad look in his eyes.
“Well, if it’s any consolation,” I quickly added at his reaction, “you’re doing great here. From what I’ve picked up from my eavesdropping and my own conversations, these guys love you.” And it was true. I’d had many conversations with the nobles, and overheard just as many in my boredom, and almost all of them had, at some point, sung the praises of the prince. After all, with the lack of snobby superiority that they expected – that I’m sure they’d have in his position – it was no wonder that they’d like the boy.
“Thank you,” Zayr said, with a surprising amount of sincerity. “I appreciate that.”
Before I could respond, Sir Dryon approached and greeted the three of us. With a bow, he said to Zayr, “The last of your guests have arrived. We’re ready to begin the hunt now, Your Highness.”
Zayr nodded to the man. “Very well,” he said, turning to us with a smile. “Biggest catch wins?” he asked with a light smile, competition flaring in his eyes.
I grinned in response. “I don’t know, Your Highness. I don’t wanna embarrass you in front of all your friends.”
“Hah! You’re on, Ruby,” the boy responded, before hopping up on his mount with one smooth movement. “Let’s hunt!” he called out, eyes shimmering with barely contained excitement.
With that, he urged his mount and shot off through the city gates, not waiting for the entourage to follow.