After saying such words, she turns and heads outside the gate. She rides past the capital and although it took her almost more than an hour before she reaches the gate, although driving at full speed.
She sees her troops waiting by the gate, fully ready to depart. She brims up with a smile, but on seeing Lucas’ face, she was shocked. He seems to be disturbed by something and was staring at her all through the time before she got close to them. On seeing that she was looking at him, he made a subtle movement with his eyes.
Looking in the direction of his eyes, she could see a carriage which was partially hidden by her troops. ‘Hmmmm, isn’t that... Could it be him?’, she thought while staring at the carriage.
It seems like the person inside finally notices that she has arrived and the doors to the carriage were opened up and the person was shown.
‘Tch, thought at much. What is he doing here?’, she thought while staring at the uninvited guest who happens to be Andrew. He was full of smiles as he stares at Olivia. “You don’t seem too shocked to be seeing me here”, Andrew says while walking towards Olivia. “What do you want? You can see that I am about to depart, so you should probably be fast with anything you wish to say”, Olivia ignores his statement and just says.
“Can’t you be all lit up with joy seeing me here? I woke up very early all just to see you after all”, Andrew replies. “I thought you were avoiding me when you didn’t come out this morning for your normal exercises. But here you are, seems like you do have a bit of conscience”, she says.
Lucas has an awkward face from their little conversation. He has always told himself not to be involved in any of their conversations and the troops seeing that Lucas, their higher up wasn’t saying anything on the issue, all chose to be quiet, otherwise, they felt like this boy was too young to be talking in that manner to their general and it was showing great disrespect to their position.
But there were three people who didn’t feel that way, the first two being the two survivors from the previous collision with joker and finally Lucas. They have personally seen this boy fighting and knew that underestimating him based on his looks was like putting oneself in deep trouble. Lancelot came around as he would be needed on the war front rather than over at the capital where there wasn’t much issue.
“I just came to see you off and also to deliver something else”, Andrew says. “For what?”, Olivia couldn’t get what Andrew has come to say to her as no matter how fast her brain was trying to process stuff, nothing did come out at the end. But she didn’t need to think that further as Andrew takes a deep bow in front of her, which shocks her. She moves her horse backwards as if the person who was currently in front of her was a stranger.
“Thank you for all that you have done for me. I am greatly in your debt, I would try my best to repay all the kindness you have shown me but on no account would I ever stop being a bother to you”, he says deeply but when he got to the last part, he raises his body and his teeth could be seen sparkling in a smile as if doing a toothpaste advert.
The words which Andrew spurted out of his mouth got Olivia deeply shocked, she didn’t expect this all from Andrew. But it still warms her heart nonetheless, it went to prove that he wasn’t as ungrateful as he seems to be. She thought about how amazing it would be if he was always this way and a smile forms on her face.
“Are you relishing in the fact that I said those words? I know you would be, after all, it all came from the future strongest man in the world”, Andrew says with a prideful expression on his face. Those words although seeming annoying, Olivia still has huge expectations of Andrew although not to the point of being the strongest man in the world, hence she just smiles in response to his words.
She looks kindly at Andrew for a while before giving commands for her troops to move out. Watching her move on with the troops, Andrew says, “When I would join the army, I would make sure it’s under your command. And don’t worry about your mother and just focus on the war, I would make sure she stays in good health until your return”.
Listening to those words from Andrew warms her heart more, but she didn’t show it all on her face as she stops and then turns to face him, “You are forgetting something else”. “Huh, forgetting something?”, he asks. He didn’t think he was forgetting anything at all and what he wanted to do, he has done it all. So he faces her and asks, “What did I forget?”.
“Don’t you have an exam you are to be taking right now?”, Olivia asks while looking at him with a smile on her face. “Exam?”, seems like he has forgotten about the examination he was to be taking today. As if receiving a bolt of inspiration, his face almost drains of all colour as he finally remembers about the admission stuff. “Shit, I almost forgot all about it”, he says while quickly jumping into the carriage and it rides off into the capital.
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Seeing him hurrying down, Olivia just smiles and watches until his carriage was a fair distance away before saying, “I trust you would take care of her. And I do hope that you don’t cause issues for me before coming back, that’s what I worry the most about”. After saying her piece, she follows her troop as they head forward to war. Hopefully, the journey there won’t be too long and they won’t encounter any mishaps.
The carriage although using its fastest speed still took more than an hour before it came to a stop in a huge stretch of land since the horse was pulling the carriage and not the horse alone moving and Andrew has to drop by the house to grab some stuff needed for the exam and to check if Marian was still behind but she has already gone for the exam.
The land although seeming to be huge was occupied by various buildings and there were lots of carriages parked at the entrance of the gate. No carriage was allowed inside and there didn’t seem to be people rushing in as one would think on the day meant for the entrance examination. This was the “School of Prestige”. There were other schools available but this school was where most parents wanted their kids to be. There were more than thousands of applicants, both from those in the capital and those outside the capital. The school was deserving of its reputation as anybody who was able to graduate from it would have all their prospects eased.
Apart from the capital, there were cities which although occupying a large span of land, were not as huge and well-secured as the capital. They were ruled by the dukes, who were just twelve in number, hence they happens to be twelve cities outside of the capital.
Due to being in charge of such a huge area of land, they tend to have their army formed which was in a way under the command of the royal family. But since they were far away from the capital, the power was held by the dukes and probably most of them has already sworn loyalty to them.
None of the dukes was present in the capital, they only sent their kids to the capital. Not even all the generals were based in the capital, there were two of the generals who weren’t based in the capital but were groomed out of the other cities. Andrew learnt all this stuff from just random chatting and some even came from Eve.
He kind of now understood a little bit about the power structure of the kingdom. There were just normal nobles in the kingdom and some were even in the cities. A lot of power is being given to the dukes, hence they might be able to betray the kingdom if need be and that seems to be exactly the case.
Apart from the cities and the capital, there were also villages scattered around the kingdom which weren’t developed up to the standard of a city but were still something at least. The kingdom was huge, with the capital at the fore back of all the cities, which means that even if they were successfully invaded, all the cities would need to be destroyed before finally getting to the capital where most of the power is concentrated.
Although the capital might seem to be the best place to stay, it was also the most dangerous if they were flanked from all sides, they would have no chance but to be destroyed as escaping to the forest would be something of sure death for them, no matter how powerful the troops they took with them. But for this period, they seem to be safe.
The gates of the school were full metal and huge, there wasn’t any gap to see what was going on inside. This was the first time Andrew wants to enter the school compound. He has just seen its location and its gate, hence the gates don’t seem that impressive to him anymore. He walks forward to the gate where there was a small gate by just the side which allows for the passage of people.
There was a guard there, who was trying to be fully serious as he stood there. Watching Andrew running down to him puts a frown on his face as he couldn’t help but wonder what he was coming here for, “What do you want kid?”, he still asks seeing Andrew getting close to him. “Am here for the entrance exams”, Andrew replies smilingly. He understood that he was late by more than ten minutes if calculated according to earth’s time.
The man’s frown deepens as he stares at the boy in front of him. Without asking any more questions though, he went through his letter and on seeing everything in place, he opens the gate to allow for his passage. It wasn’t in his place after all to admonish him, he didn’t know what kind of family he came from, and didn’t want to get himself into any troublesome issue. But after Andrew has run off for a while, the guard murmurs, “You are already this late for just the entrance examination. When you have the right connections, anything is possible after all”.
Andrew ran for a fair distance without pause, running across the structures. On entering the school did he know that it was truly occupying a large span of land. After going through various buildings in the school before Andrew realized that he was lost. He didn’t know the exact building the exam was being taken in and there were various buildings present in the school. Before he would go through all of them, the exams would probably be over. ‘Shit, I guess I am to blame for this’, he thought. After searching for a little while, Andrew was about to give up on searching for the hall when he saw her. Eve has been going around seeming to be searching for something, and that was when she saw Andrew and her face blossoms with a pretty smile.
“Where have you been? I just went to relieve myself and that was when you came in. Hurry up, you are already super late”, she says immediately. As if he was a dying man in the desert who finally saw water, he runs in the direction of Eve. She has been waiting by the gate for Andrew for a while to come since she didn’t see him with Marian and was also not among the thousands of people who came in. She went to relieve herself and when she came back, she asks the guard who was there if someone had come in, and truly he had come in within the scope of time she was away. She had wanted to relax knowing that he finally made it in time, but remembered that Andrew was fairly new to the environment and just to confirm that he was in the hall, went inside the school. This was the school she was in, and hence with her identification card, she was able to get in. She went to his hall but couldn’t find him and knew that he was lost, hence went around the school looking for him, only to find him here.