{POV: Nimue}

After not being able to find my master Jona anywhere in the aftermath, I decided before the day was over to teleport myself and Kira to my home in the Sky kingdom….

I used my magic to activate the gems inside the golem while sitting on it to pat Kira’s head. she has not been in the best of moods after waking up and finding that Jona is gone… this girl is really attached to her…

“So, your back?” ???

 An old man in a very expensive looking robe walked up to me since I am sure he sensed the magic activating from the magic circle below our feet that was attached and with the magic stones we were able to connect to this place…

“I will tell you all about it later father, first I need to have my dear friend here taken care of… and I have to go back out and look for my master… she saved us but she has seemed to have vanished… and I am worried.” Nimue.

Bowing to my father while the golem puts Kira down and turning back to the earth because of the magic was used in the teleportation… luckily I can use the golems like mana tanks… but once the mana is gone they are also unable to keep their forms.

“Understood, but first let’s get both of your wounds looked at.” Father.

“I….” Nimue.

“I will not take no for an answer.” Father.

He had stated then moved his hand up in the air and the maids came forward to take us to a private room for us to bathe and have our wounds healed…. I really don’t have the time for this…

After a few hours, I told my father to take care of Kira… and I see her as family, and he smiled a fatherly smile and said he would treat her like a princess.

Getting restocked with plenty of stones… unfortunately they didn’t have time to make the ones to purify blight and other curses since the holy mages here have been working hard on saving children of other nations….

The nations of humans to be more accurate, because they seem to not care for the small villages…  my kingdom decides to slowly win more land by earning the villagers trust and then turning it into our land… even if it is really owned by the kingdoms in each nation with our backing they can turn against their nations and join ours.

This has been going on behind the scenes a lot lately. Thanks to all the wars that has been going on due to humans, specially the human kingdom of Sinas… they treat all non-humans as trash. We decide to slowly take over, but it is difficult with the war between the humans versus the other races and then the undead trying to kill more without caring for race… but this has been pushing the blame onto the Demon kingdom despite the demon kingdom actually being quite remote and peaceful compared to the humans.

Anyhow while thinking to myself… I came across a demon walking along the forest seemingly heading to the beast capital, though I say demon… it can really be any other race, but his beautiful girly looks with nice tan skin and long hair… wait? Is he a guy or a girl?

He seems to be skilled so it’s probably best not to be an enemy of his… specially the girl beside him… gives me a weird feeling. She has solid black hair and black eyes, with strange clothing on, though it is well covered, I never seen materials like that. It’s more like someone made with metals that seem very bendable.

Even when I was able to deal with my mother… that took all sorts of weird books she called ‘manga’ from the archives of the Flame Clan…

Yes, after the war, the archives were strangely not destroyed but my mother decided to take it all for herself…

Anyway, the girl here, I never seen even the Flame clan to have such armor… and there is even some sort of black lines with numbers under her right eye…

The only thing I can make sense of is the straps around her boots, stockings , waist, arms, and neck… long with the weirdly, bulky red gauntlets that has holes around the wrist area like they are meant to shoot out bolts? Maybe some strange bow creation…

I really haven’t read any of the ‘manga’ my mother took, but I seen her showing me different scenes and such… mostly romantic ones? Well it wasn’t as interesting as the history books that were in the library of Flames, like how they built their kingdom, their martial arts… and such like that.

They seemed like they been here awhile? Maybe I can ask them if they seen Jona…

“U-um excuse me.” Nimue.

Walking up to them seeing if they could be of any help to me… I hope so, but the looks of them they probably don’t care too much about strangers. Especially when they seemed surprised I even talked to them?

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Yes?” Male voice.

So… he is really a male… but he looks like a girl at face value, with a closer look to him, makes him able to be passed off as a girl… with the hair color being dark aqua, while his eyes seem to be closer to the same color only a brighter color, but from his horns I can clearly tell he’s a high demon probably a noble.

“Have you seen a young girl…. With silver like hair and pinkish eyes?” Nimue.

“Yes actually… a few days ago… was quite amusing actually” Female.

“Do you know where she is?” Nimue

“I think she fell in a hole… in the ground running form a small boar…” Female.

Is she trying to hold in her laughter?

“Can you tell me about where this hole is?” Nimue.

“Yes, you see if you walk the direction we came, for about an hour or so, you’d come across it… though it closed up as soon as she fell through, so I doubt it would be of any use to you.” Female.

“Well thanks… if we meet again in the future I’d be sure to give my proper thanks then…” Nimue.

As I started to run off, the guy said something, but I could only catch that he was amused by her calling that small…. And that he was really interested in Jona… I could tell about how his normally bored eyes came interested when I asked… but he didn’t say anything.

About an hour of half walking, half running, I came across what looks of a battle field….

This huge boar, about the size of a small castle, is small? I mean there are holes all over its body… I say this was done… by some pretty high powered magic…  was it from the boy or girl… no telling who did this, but that girls gauntlets give me a very bad feeling.

It seems they cut up some of the boar’s meat as well… probably as rations?

I have been looking for this hole in the ground… but at most I only saw a metal plate door after a few hours of searching…

So, the best bet is to use nature magic to try to figure the outlining of this.. hole…

Damn.. .this thing is really like a maze… I can only feel one life form… very weak but is farther away.

By following the link to my magic to the closest location hoping there might be another way in, it just lead back out of the forest…

Then the life signal vanished… almost set me into a panic… if that’s Jona… only two ways can a life signal vanish… either by dying or teleporting…

But before my mind went into really dark thoughts, the life force showed back up about a little ways away from me, and sure enough it was my master… Jona…

I went rushing to her with a bad feeling about her; I tackled her to the ground so she couldn’t get away and my tears also couldn’t be controlled for how much worried I for her safety…

“Jona! I can’t believe you’re alive! Thank goodness!” Nimue.

I am sure… some of my words were cut out from my crying… I couldn’t keep myself from crying… it’s been awhile since she’s gone… I really haven’t eaten anything or sleep since she vanished…

It even took me another day by the time I found the demon and the weird girl… thanks to my father making me stay and clean up… not like that matters…  when I had to find her…

“where… is Kira…” Jona.

She seemed to have difficulty just speaking….

“She’s at my house, I took her there… it has been four days! So after the first day… of looking I took her home so I could look more freely…” Nimue.

After calming down a bit I realized… the search took longer than just a few days… I was too much of a panic to actually take the days in… but if my bracelet is right… it has a 4 day charge on it… really? My bracelet is something that works my armor, it gets a charge by day I don’t use it… must have really…

“Sorry… I won’t run off like that again…” Jona.

Being totally unguarded for the apology, it cut my train of thought and I couldn’t help but smile… but it quickly vanished when I spotted dark-like vines on the back of her neck, and with a panicking motion, I smashed her a little bit too close to me and I could hear her grunt in pain. Despite that, I had to move her back home fast… this is at the later stages… oh I hope… it isn’t too late… this stupid girl…

Once I came back, I seen that my father was worried about me and Kira rushing to me. I had no time for them right now; I need to tell father right now what’s wrong, he usually acts pretty fast.

“She.. has a blight mark!” Nimue.

My father frowned then rushed to us even faster as tears flowed from my eyes even more than before… I am a failure of a knight… I couldn’t… stop this from getting this far… if it wasn’t for…

“She’ll be okay.” Father.

Luckily she fainted… I don’t want her to feel regret… for…

“We’ll save her okay? Rush to your Uncle's house and bring him here. He should have just gotten back from work… he can heal this if we catch it fast enough, you understand!” Father.

Him yelling at me made me jump, but not sure of my own words, I simply rushed out the door with just a nod, running as fast as my body could take me to my uncles house… really, I hate this place… too many bushes just in the way. It's like some stupid maze for the fun of it… it is a waste of space!

Rushing and cutting my way through the bushes without caring about anything else, I arrived at the and I slammed the door open knocking a few butlers over and kept rushing while I asked them where my uncle was, luckily he had made it back and was in the study…

“Uncle! Comes with me now! It’s important, just come!” Nimue

“Yes, my princess.” Uncle.

… He has a way of making me feel uncomfortable, but he quickly understood and kept up with me. We got back to my house while father motioned us to the guest room, and then forced me to wait outside. I wanted to argue but, with the look in his eyes, I couldn’t say anything but stand outside…

What seemed like forever… the door finally opened and my uncle came out with father, both of them looked as if they knocked a few years from their lives… must have been.. a tough treatment… wait… did… she…

“She’s fine, all she needs is some sleep. You got a tough friend… if it wasn’t for her spiritual energy I am afraid she would have died before she got here… to have spiritual energy without eating for a few days is outstanding… I would like you to tell her I would want to speak to her when she is ready alright?” Uncle.

“Y-yes!” Nimue.

“And next time… try not to destroy my yard… it was costly to get it that way…” Uncle.

“It was in the way!” Nimue.

Both him and father laughed and walked off, leaving the door open as if they knew I wanted to go inside…

Walking up to my master sleeping peacefully, I couldn’t help but sigh in relief… as I sat beside her waiting for her to wake up… I can’t let this happen again…