The Wallowing Forest was known as a forest full of dangerous creatures and floras. The deeper someone goes into the forest, the more dangerous the creatures of the forest. Only fools would enter the forest willingly. A huge winged creature resided in the mountain inside the forest, the people feared the creature, they called the creature, Wallowing Dragon. The Wallowing Dragon once attacked Aruburn City and almost completely destroyed the city. Auburn City itself was built to protect the kingdom from the creatures that came out from the forest. Many generations of the Duke of Aruburn had their fair share of challenges when they ruled the Duchy to protect the kingdom from the creatures of the forest.

However, the people of the kingdom did not know the fact that the Wallowing Dragon they feared so much had been killed by a group of people who accidentally stumbled upon it. The carcass of the Wallowing Dragon lay inside the forest, some parts of the body looked like it was eaten.

A couple of figures looked at the carcass of the Dragon.

“This dragon was taken down immediately,” said one figure.

“Multiple wounds to the body, precise shot, and probably explosion,” said the other.

They looked around the area around the carcass, they found wolf carcasses.

“Multiple wolves were killed as well… Wait, it can’t be, Clark!”

“What is it, Eric?”

“Look at this, a bullet casing.” Eric picked up a leftover cartridge. “And there are more of them.”

“You’re right,” Clark observed the cartridges. “This is the standard ammo used by our service rifles.”

“I don’t remember we ever sent someone to take care of this dragon. And I don’t think this ammunition could take down this huge creature.”

“You’re right. There are maybe more clues. Let’s expand our search area.”

Clark and Eric looked around the area until they found a clearing inside the forest. They saw a burned patch of grass, multiple of them. They also saw a campfire.

Eric touched the campfire. “It had not been used for a long time, but looking at the conditions of the campfire and the logs and stones used as, probably, chairs. This place was new.”

“Yeah, look at his burned patch. Do you think it looked too uniform and perfect to be a random burn?”

“No, this is probably what I think it is.”

“Yeah. But, how come we did not detect them?”

“Probably the Galactic Imperium technology had advanced enough to be able to evade our radar detection.”

“Hahhh, that’s right. It had been centuries since our ancestors left the Empire.”

“Do you think they have expanded here?”

Clark shrugged his shoulders. “No idea. We should get back to Aruburn for now. If they landed here, they must have gone there. We should ask around.”

“Sure, let’s go.”

Eric and Clark arrived at Aruburn City a week later. When they arrived, the sun was coming down to the horizon. They immediately went into an inn and rented rooms. They decided to gather information by listening to the conversation of the patrons of the inn. A lot was talked about by people in the inn and one thing that caught their attention was a conversation about travellers from far away land. The conversation was between a man with the body of a fighter and his friend. Eric and Clark decided to gather more information from them.

“Hello there, may we join?” Eric said with a friendly tone.

“Who the fuck are you? Fuck off!” said the man.

Clark pulled out a bag of shillings–this world's money. “Come on, let us treat you both.”

Shilling was the name of the money used in this world, consisting of copper coin, silver coin and gold coin; A copper coin was worth 1 shilling, a silver coin was worth 10 shillings and a gold coin was worth 100 shillings.

“Well, I guess I can loosen my lips a bit for tonight.”

The man was a knight of Aruburn, he was in a detachment left in the city to defend the city. He told the pair about the travellers of a distant land. They wore fine clothing, at first the knights thought they were all nobles, however, they were told only 3 of them were nobles and the rest were soldiers. The knight also told them, the travellers were all part of the military of their country and the fine clothing was their uniform.

“So, I want to know more about the nobles, what is their family name?” asked Eric.

“All of them are from the same family, umm… It was Lorien, I believe.”

“You’re joking, right?” Eric was surprised.

“No, it was their name.”

“What do they look like?”

“Well, one similarity they have to each other is their white colour hair, probably a trait of their family.”

Eric and Clark looked at each other, it seemed they had the same thought. “I see, where are they now?” asked Clark.

“They joined the Duke’s army going to the Capital.”

“Thank you for the information.”

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“No problem.”

Eric and Clark immediately went into the room they rented. They made sure they were alone and no one was eavesdropping on them.

“A Lorien? Eric, do you think he said the truth?”

“I don’t know. But, by the way, he talked it seemed he told the truth.”

“But how? There are no descendants of Lorien outside Elsewen.”

“We should report this information back to Her Majesty.”

“Agree, we should leave immediately tomorrow morning. If we are lucky they are friendly and not part of the rebels.”

By the morning, Eric and Clark departed from the city. However, unbeknownst to them, the knight who told them the story had told his commander about them. Suspicious, the commander ordered Eric and Clark to be followed, however, the people who were tasked to follow them lost both of them after they went outside the city. A messenger was sent to Duke Aruburn about this, the Duke was suspicious about the people who were asking about Lucas and his companions. The Duke, however, did not tell Lucas about this, he told his men to investigate Eric and Clark. The Duke speculated they would go after them to the Capital and had told his men to report to him if they saw a person with a matching description of Eric and Clark.

Bianca had recovered from her illness, she was bedridden for 5 days. Bianca, Ariana and Lucas were in Bianca’s room.

Bianca asked, “Where are Max and Sarah?”

“They are with the Duke August,” said Lucas.

“Hmm, busy as always.”

“They are dealing with the aftermath of the disease and reorganisation of the army of the kingdom.”

“Why wasn't Ariana involved?”

“She was in charge of fixing the kingdom’s administration, especially the financial sector. You know this world hasn’t used modern bookkeeping methods.”

“That’s a hard one, especially when the kingdom is in regency.”

“I’m fine with that, I was tasked to re-record the financial report into double-entry bookkeeping,” said Ariana. Bianca observed there was no improvement in the relationship between Lucas and Ariana, since their quarrel a month ago.

Although it was Ariana’s fault for disobeying Lucas’s order and mentioning Lucy in front of Lucas, Bianca thought it was too much of a lash-out from Lucas to Ariana. Before, they had a great relationship and Lucas had begun to open his heart up to another woman. Now, all of that had crumbled to dust just because of a small altercation between a commander and his officer. Bianca thought

“We need to ensure the kingdom’s finances are recorded properly. Also, we can weed out embezzlers this way,” said Lucas.

“I guess you’re right,” Bianca agreed to Lucas' idea.

Ariana’s initial finding found that most of the administrators were embezzling from the kingdom’s treasury. When this was brought to Duke August, he ordered Ariana to arrest everyone who was embezzling the money. However, since they did not have the Crown’s authority, the effort proved to be difficult, since arresting nobles could ruin the Duke’s name. Lucas told the Duke and Ariana to keep silent and keep investigating the embezzlement secretly until they could be arrested when the Crown Prince was anointed.

“Since we don’t have the crown’s authority, arresting nobles would be seen as treason to the Crown. Even the Duke couldn’t do anything,” said Ariana.

“Hah, I knew it. As long as there is no King, the nobles are cunt,” said Lucas.

“The Crown Prince still not found?” said Bianca.

“Yeah, even the Queen did not know where he was.”

“That’s bad.”

“Talking about the Queen, we should meet her, she asked for us to come.”

“Really? All of us?”

“No, only you and me.”

“Huh, interesting. Anyway, I haven’t seen Lyra for a long time, where is she?”

“She is on a mission, I’ll tell you the details later,” said Lucas. Bianca could see Lucas was hiding something from everyone, but her. She guessed the information was for the House only.

“Okay, let’s arrange a meeting with Her Majesty.”

“I’ll do it,” said Ariana.

“No you don’t have to, we can just ask the maid here.” Bianca refused her offer.

“No need, I’m Lucas’ aide, so it falls under my job.”

“She is right, Bianca,” said Lucas. Bianca looked at him with a disapproving expression. “Then, go ahead and ask Her Majesty.”

“I will.” Ariana left the room. Leaving both Lucas and Bianca alone in the room.

“What’s wrong with you?” said Bianca,

“Huh?”

“Acting cold and nonchalant to her.”

Lucas walked toward the window, he looked outside. “What’s wrong with that?”

“I thought you loved her?”

“Love her?” Lucas turned his head to Bianca. “I guess, I do love her.”

“The–”

“But, she said something she shouldn’t.”

“Lucy, right?”

Lucas nodded. “It was you who told her right?”

“Ah, I’m sorry.”

Lucas clenched his fist. “I still don’t know what goes through my father's mind. In order to save me, he removed people’s memories of her. If I knew about that, I would prefer to be locked up and pay for my crime.”

“Lucas…” Bianca had stood alongside him, she held his hand.

“I knew all the people on that planet were innocent. Their blood is in my hands and I can’t wash it off. That time, I wasn’t in the right mind, I still remembered you begging me to stop.”

“But, you still did it.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry. Because of my actions, only a few remembered Lucy.”

Bianca flicked Lucas’s forehead with her finger. “Stupid.”

“Ouch, what was that for?”

“There you go again. Blaming yourself again! Listen here, what happened in the past is in the past. Yes, you did a horrible thing, those innocent people didn’t deserve the same punishment as the noble who led the planet. Even Lucy would hate you for that.”

“You’re right. Lucy would hate me.”

“Her death wasn’t your fault either. When we were born as Loriens, death, assassination even kidnapping would always be at our door. Lucy, too, knew the consequences. It must have been hard for her… her kidnapping.”

“She should have told us what her feelings were, instead of keeping silent.”

“That’s how she was. She tried to look strong, so as to not worry us. She is a foolish girl, being strong doesn’t mean keeping her problems to herself. Anyway, It wasn’t your fault that she died. Listen, your sin of killing those innocent people, I don’t think you can wash it away. That’s why, I think you can, at least, lessen your sin.”

“How?”

“Just like you have planned before. Unite this planet and bring this planet’s civilization to survive until the Galactic Empire discovers this place. Even better, make this civilization into a space-faring civilization. We don’t know if this civilization originated from the lost Lorien expeditions centuries ago, but if it is then we should be able to find ruins or relics from the expedition.”

“You’re right, honestly, I’ve been thinking your theory is the most possible one. Nothing can explain this much similarity between our civilizations.”

“Correct. We need to learn more.”