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Herman
As we got closer to the carriage a few of the soldiers gave me wary looks before going back to getting everything ready to restart their traveling, not like I blame them, if I was attacked by a group of mercenaries and a ramdom guy came in to save me I would be wary to.
After a few more steps we got to the leader of the small regiment who was at the momment talking to the noblewoman, who had to wait outside while the carriage was being repaired, a few momments passed with the leader taking notice of us first, So he points it out for the noblewoman to take notice of us too.
Once they faced me I got a better look of how each of them is, the leader was an old white haired man with a strong jaw and a rough small beard, probably around 50 years old, clearly a veteran in his job, the noblewoman herself looked at me with a warm smile and I suddenly froze up as I became entranced in awe at the beautiful face adorned with a straight hair with a brown tone to it, her dress quite long and fancy compared to those in my world as expected, her figure regal in nature, her movements graceful even to the smallest degree.
It took me a moment to break from the trance of her beauty, earning a little jiggle from her, the knight and the commander raised an eyebrow as they looked me up and down more attentively, and sir Liam just seemed a bit worried.
Once the noblewoman stopped giggling the commander began to speak in a rather strong voice for someone who looked as old as him "Greetings Wanderer, I am Sir Orthand Tradator, Commander of the Guards of the Trucuri Family, Knight of the same House, the one at my right is Sir Thiumgral Trisor, Knight of the same and you've already meet Sir Alegii, as for..."
"Sir Tradator I would prefer to introduce myself" Sir Tradator would just bow slightly as the noblewoman moved foward, her hand going to her clevage as she gave a small nod in form of greeting, graceful and seemingly flawless in it's form, smiling towards me and speaking in a cordial and graceful manner, just as you'd expect from a noble.
"Greetings Wanderer, I am Rammir Trucuri eldest daughter of the Trucuri House" she paused for a moment, after a few seconds I realized she was waiting for me respond the greeting, so I did a deep european bow, which came out rather clumsy in the end.
"I am Herman Cruz, only son of my humble family, it is my utmost preasure to make an acquaintance with you lady Trucuri" As I did my greeting, both Sir Tradator and Sir Trisor raise their eyebrows again, slightly surprised at a simple wanderer having at least what I believe were decent manners for a commoner, while Sir Liam just seemed in to be surprised to a degree you would not expect from a knight, still a worried look on his face.
"The feeling is mutual, Mister Cruz, it is not often you can find someone with such mannerisms, but for now I'll leave that aside as you have my gratitude for helping us with the predicament we where in a moment ago, from what Sir Tradator has told me your arrows were what made the tide of the battle turn to favor us" she said with a tender smile, I blushed a bit at the praise.
From the side a soldier shouted towards the commander that the wheel of the carriage had been repaired, the commander tells them to prepare to resume their travels, then turns back to Lady Trucuri with a more formal air to him "The carriage is ready for use my lady"
"Great then, I guess I should probably step back in it, once again, you have our gratitude for your help Mister Cruz" Lady Trucuri followed by a slight nod of respect, after which she went towards her carriage accompanied by Sir Trisor. Sir Tradator by his part decided to check on the rest of the soldiers, not before giving me a judging look, Sir Liam stayed with me, with a sigh of resigment out of his lungs he soon pointed me towards one horse I could use to travel with them, his owner wouldn't use it anymore, rest in peace ramdom soldier who died on duty, I'll make sure to take care of your horse as best as I can.
"His name is Feroce, he's a bit stuborn but you should be fine, I'll leave you to bond with it, we part in 10 minutes" As he said that Sir Liam left towards where his own horse and the small squadron he commanded. While he did that I approached the horse I've been given, certainly he seemed quite big, but I believed i would be able to handle myself.
"Hello there friend, I'm a bit of a newbie at riding so, I hope you take it easy on me" I tried to stroke his neck gently, he didn't seem to mind me doing so, that's a good sign isn't it? For now I guess should get ready to ride him, I have 10 minutes to learn how, I think the basics are mostly about balance, stamina and knowing to not trigger the horse in a bad way, with the body the god gave me I should be good about stamina, I'm confident enough in my balance, and he doesn't seem to be easy to scare, I might've not been a horse caretaker but he smeemed like a good horse "Let's get along Feroce"
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After everything was in order we resumed the journy, now with me added to their ranks, by this point we had been traveling for a while, for how much the sun had moved down I would've said about 4 hours of galloping at a consistent pace, we are going quite fast so I guess they were in a bit of a hurry to get to our destination, well, not like I wouldn't be in a hurry if I was being chased by a group of mercenaries.
From what Sir Liam told me we were heading towards the border of this country that's called The Kingdom of Legrosia, Lady Trucuri is from the Triarim Empire and was on this side to visit her relatives, however on the way back for some unknown reason the mercenaries started chasing her, probably the work of some noble she had a quarrel with or something along those lines.
The good thing was that me and Feroce seemed to be quite compatible. At first it took me a while to get the hang of riding him while just jogging, even more when we started galloping down the road, I almost fell a few times, but an hour in I started to feel more comfortable and stable, at the moment I only lose balance when we do a sharp turn so that's a good sign.
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Sir Liam said it would take only about 16 hours to reach the border at the pace we where going, but soon it'll be night time though, so we'll probably have to camp somewhere down the road and reach the border tomorrow, I only hope the mercenaries are far away enough that they don't ambush us during the night.
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As the last bits of light from the sun diminished, I found myself sitting at a bonfire and looking at the sky, which made me notice that there were 2 moons, another thing to add to the list of things that are different here from my world, after a momment I looked back at the bonfire being quite alone, I was around the area where the horses where left, the only company I had being Feroce, who was for his part to occupied drinking from the trough.
After a while of watching the fire I decided to look through my backpack to get out a few pieces of jerky, since I didn't even have a cauldron it was the only thing I had to eat, I also had the dried fruit, but that was more of a snack than an actual meal, not like the jerkies were any better though.
While I was busy taking a bite out of one of the jerkies lonely, suddenly I perked up a bit as I took notice of Sir Liam approaching me while following none other than Lady Trucuri, which made me enter a bit of a panic, visibly making her jiggle at my reaction to her merely walking in my direction.
"Good evenning Mister Cruz, would you mind if I made you company during your night meal?" She said with a tender voice in salute while Sir Liam only nodded slightly in silence, his expresion a bit worried stil, he really didn't like the lady approaching me it seemed, which I don't really blamed him for, I was pretty much a stranger to them.
"Aah... ye-yeah, be my guest, I wouldn't really call it a meal though... but it's the only thing I have in my backpack apart from dried fruit, speaking of which.. would you mind if I offer you some?" Why did I say that, she is a noblewoman, why the heck would she want to eat something like dried fruit packed away in a ramdom traveler's backpack, you idiot Herman, why did you do...
"Well since you are being so kind as to offer me some I have no reason to refuse" She said as she took a seat in the log I found myself in, right by my side... huh, that... ended up being a good move.
Once I sorted my thoughts a bit I pulled up my backpack and started to frantically search for a few pieces of dried food, the ones that seemed to be in the beast condition, which made her jiggle a little while Sir Liam just stood there by the side in silence, his face at this point of clear as sky worry, sorry Liam, I guess I've been a bit to friendly, but ain't stopping now.
"Here you go, I hope they are to your liking" I said as I pulled out my hand from the backpack rather nerveously, offering the best dried fruit I managed to grab, which she took from me in a grateful manner.
She then procceded to eat one of the pieces, a pineapple one, after a moment of savoring it she looked at the rest of them a bit amused "This is quite sweet, but no cloying at all, really good quality dried fruit, did you make it yourself?"
Okay so the dried fruit is really good it seems, I should've expected it, after all the god made it. Now, how do I mask the fact that a literal god made that dried fruit?
"No, I got it from a some guy I meet on my way to the grasslands, didn't say his name though so that's a dead end on the source" Tecnichally not a lie, good, on another note, now that I realize I didn't know the name of the god as he never told me, I had just been calling him 'the god'.
"Well, that's a bit of a shame" She made a small pause signaled Sir Liam signaled towards her tent, probably her own dinner was ready, obviously it would be better to eat it before it got cold "It seems my meal is ready, so if you would excuse me"
"Oh I wouldn't dare to hold you here, go ahead" I said a bit nerveously, it's not that I didn't know how to handle woman, but 'most women I had talked to weren't as fancy nor as beautyful as her'.
"Beautyful huh" Wait what? How did she know what I... before finishing that train of thought I realized what I did.
"I spoke out loud didn't I?" Welp, there goes all the dignity I had when facing her, I'm just gonna dig a hole and crawl in, maybe dig a cave beside me so a creeper spawns to blow me up since we are at it.
"I've been called beautyful a lot of times, though most of them came from high society men just trying to get a bit to close to my liking, you're probably the first pretty man that says it to my face like that" she said with a bit of a jokingly tone.
Wait did she just call me pretty? She did right, even if it was just in a jocking tone she did, did I actually have some kind of chance? I wasn't really aiming for that kind of thing, my plan was just to make ties with nobility in case I ever needed help with something of high society, but if I had a chance to develop that kind of relationship...
"How about you come and have dinner with me, after all food tastes better with good company" She said with a now rather tempting smile, Sir Liam in the background seemingly a bit awkward at the whole situation.
Well, if I really have a chance I'm not gonna ignore it, as a wise man once said 'Carpe Diem', once I sorted out my thoughts I stood up from the log and offer her a hand "Well, if I won't impose on you I'll gradly accept the offer Lady Trucuri"
"You won't, and if you would be so kind I'd prefer you call me Lady Rammir, Sir Herman" She them took the offered hand as I helped her stand up from the log, after which we started walking towards her tent, she in a graceful manner while I did so being quite nerveous still.
"As you wish Lady Rammir" under the guise of the moon and with the smell of steak we went to her tent.
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Regulus
We where so close to getting her, we had chased her from Lifrindel to here so we where at it for quite a while, we finally managed to catch up to them and even broke one of their wheels, we only had to win the battle and we would have gotten her, but the stupid traveler had to butt in and get a lucky shot, well, at least he only got Tommy's hands and not something vital, still that was enough to have us do a tactical reatreat, which I don't really find pleasing.
We still chased them down the road for the next 5 hours after regrouping from our retreat, I could see far in the distance a faint source of light, so they weren't that far away from us, we could try to ambush them, but we wouldn't as it was to risky to fight their men clad in half-plate and those three knights without the magical support of our wizard, speaking of which.
"Tommy, how are your hands now?" I said as I looked towards him while our medic was tending to his wounds.
"I think by tomorrow afternoon I should be able to hold my staff properly, or at least enough to cast the ususal stuff" Said the wizards as he flinched at the feeling of the medic touching the wounds "Hey be careful Roland!"
"I am being careful Tommy, you're jut moving to much" Said Roland while he was finishing to replace the bandages of the right hand and moving onto the left one "Though I can confirm that Tommy should be able to cast almost as fast as usual by tomorrow afternoon"
"Great, we'll need him if we really want to have a chance to get them, we cannot let her cross the border... not after what she did, the embezzelment was something pardonable, but the kidnapping and human trafficking... we cannot let such scum of a human escape to the empire" I said, partly to myself and partly to the rest of my comrades, now angry at the memory of the entire wherehouse filled with kidnapped kids ready to be shipped to 'who knows where', most likely the empire.
"Everybody get a good amount of sleep, tomorrow we ride at the first light!!"
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Herman
The meat was quite good, jerky was fine but it really can't compare to the flavor of a well cooked steak, as I tried to take another bite as gracefuly as my clumsy table manner allowed me, Lady Rammir smiled at me tenderly, so I smiled back.