Waking up the next morning, Kelsey’s headache had thankfully subsided. Opening her eyes, she quickly realized that it was still early in the morning and saw Gwen was sleeping peacefully next to her. Carefully extracting her arm from underneath the sleeping woman, Kelsey summoned some comfortable traveling clothes onto herself and exited the room. She had a while before the other two would be awake, so she thought she had time to pick up a quick breakfast.
Once she was outside her room, she activated warp and arrived in Neim half a minute later. She quickly made her way into the city and bought some fresh food from a stall that was serving breakfast for laborers, who were the only ones awake at such an early hour. After buying the food and thanking the merchant, she stored the food, found a secluded side street, and warped back to the cabin.
As she arrived, she saw with her domain that Abby was already awake and was getting ready to come downstairs. Kelsey quickly set the kitchen table and got the food ready for the sisters. They didn’t eat much yesterday, so they would likely be hungry. It was true that Immortals could go a very long time without food or water, but it was still uncomfortable for most of them. Kelsey didn't have to worry about food or water, but she knew that both Gwen and Abby did.
A few minutes later, Abby walked down the stairs wearing a look of someone who just had the best night of sleep in their life. “Morning. I take it you’re feeling well?” Kelsey asked.
Abby smiled brightly. “Kelsey… you have no idea how nice it was to sleep without the constant shaking waking me up every five seconds. I haven’t slept like that in over a decade. Ugh I feel so good.” she said as she stretched out her back and sat down at the kitchen table.
“I’m glad to hear it. I got some food from Neim, I hope you like it.” Kelsey said as she sat down.
Abby gave Kelsey an exasperated look. “You teleporters… you have it so easy. We’re in a remote part of northern Anoura and you just popped down to a city over 10 days of travel away like it’s nothing. It’s not fair I tell you.” she said accusingly as she tiredly pointed a finger towards Kelsey.
“Hey, you’re benefiting from it today, so shut it.” Kelsey said jokingly. “So, what have you decided? About what you’re going to do next, I mean.”
Abby finished eating a bite of eggs before answering. “Gwen and I talked about it for a few minutes last night after you fell asleep. I’ve decided to stay here for now. She tells me that your plan is to go to Saldeya, then pick up your friends from The Trial, and bring them here for a short vacation. After that vacation I’ll figure out what I want to do. For now, I’m just going to relax here and practice my plant magic, and exercise… I need to get back in peak condition if I want to go out adventuring again.” she answered confidently.
Kelsey nodded her head in understanding. “Good idea. I think Gwen and I are planning on leaving later today. We want to make it to Saldeya and take back the Guild quickly.” she said, taking a bite of food. “Speaking of Gwen, I’m going to go wake her up. I thought the smell of food would do it, but she’s out cold.”
Kelsey quickly walked up the stairs and woke up her sleeping partner. She waited for Gwen to get dressed and then they made their way back downstairs together so Gwen could eat breakfast before it got cold.
The rest of the meal was spent talking about the meeting with the queen. Both Gwen and Abby were amazed at how strong the queen really was. Kelsey was mostly impressed by her extreme levels of mana control. “I think I might start trying that mana manipulation thing she did. Could come in handy someday.” Kelsey said as the topic shifted to her trick of levitating. “It also gave me an idea on how to make one of my skills stronger. After breakfast, would you be willing to help me test, Gwen? We can head out right after.”
Gwen nodded. “Sure, she gave me an idea about one of mine too, but I can test mine while we’re on the road.” she said as she was taking the last few bites of her food.
As Gwen was finishing, Kelsey summoned all of the books on magic, mana, and the system that she had acquired for her time in isolation and left them on the kitchen table. “Abby, if you want to do some reading, I studied all of these books, and they really helped me get a lot stronger. If you get bored, I’d recommend checking them out.”
Abby looked through a few of them and nodded her head a few times. “Very interesting stuff, I’ll check them out for sure.”
A few minutes later, Kelsey and Gwen made their way down to the training area.
“Alright Gwen, I’m going to need you to try to stab me. Start softly and work your way up.” Kelsey said as she pulled off her cloak, leaving just her shirt on.
Kelsey thought that Gwen might have some reservations about simply stabbing her, but she seemed completely comfortable with it. I feel like I should be worried about that.
Gwen created a short sword and walked up to Kelsey and began repeatedly stabbing at her with the blade, putting more force behind it each time. For a few dozen attempts, the blade stopped short of Kelsey's skin, deflected by her Armor of the Magus skill that was always active.
Eventually though, the blade broke through Kelsey’s protection and jammed into her stomach. “Good. Okay, remember how much strength you used and use that exact amount again.” Kelsey said as she helped Gwen pull the sword from her midsection.
As the sword left, Kelsey began letting more mana out of her body. Simply letting about twice as much energy out of her body than she normally did.
As the sword made contact with her Armor, the skill held this time. It works! The skill does actually use the ambient mana that I naturally release. Incredible.
“More.” Kelsey said.
Gwen continuously increased her strength until once again, the sword pierced the armor and punctured Kelsey’s stomach.
This trend continued for several more minutes. As Gwen would successfully break her defenses, Kelsey would double her mana output. This worked until eventually, letting more mana out of her body didn’t improve the defenses anymore. Through some quick testing it seemed that there was a limit to how much mana the skill could use in its defenses. That number was slightly over 10,000 mana per second. Thankfully, Kelsey regenerated 55,000 mana every second, so that number was manageable. She hoped that the mana the skill was able to use would increase as it leveled up. It was something she would need to keep an eye on. As far as she could tell, the rest of the excess mana was simply being lost to the world.
What that 10,000 mana per second meant however was that it took using nearly her maximum physical strength for Gwen to pierce Kelsey’s armor. Kelsey knew that this discovery wouldn’t completely protect her in a fight against someone like Gwen, but it would lessen every attack that was sent her way and make it so weaker people would be completely unable to damage her. No matter how it was actually used, learning something about her skills was always useful.
After their testing was done, Kelsey quickly cleaned herself off and repaired her clothes by channeling some mana into them. Glad I know that’s possible now…
Gwen and Kelsey spent a little over an hour down by the river simply enjoying each other's company and relaxing. The day before had been quite draining and they both wanted to take the much-needed reprieve from working.
Walking back into the cabin, Kelsey saw that Abby had already opened one of the books on mana and was passionately reading it. “Hey Abby, I think we’re ready to head out...”
Abby looked up a bit distractedly. It was clear she was extremely interested in whatever she was reading. “Alright you two, have a safe trip. I’ll see you in a couple weeks.”
Gwen quickly walked over and hugged her sister goodbye before coming back to stand next to Kelsey.
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“Take good care of Bud while we’re gone.” Kelsey said as she activated Warp and wrapped Gwen in mana.
Abby had already gone back to reading but nodded dismissively. "Will do, good luck."
Dang, when she reads, she really reads...
A minute later, the pair were standing next to the beautiful pond they had left the day before. “It feels like we’ve been gone forever, but it's been less than a full day.” Kelsey said as she looked around.
“Yeah, I know, it's kind of crazy how much happened yesterday. We met an actual Queen and took her to a random cabin in the forest. Wild.” Gwen agreed.
“So, I’ve been thinking… you know how we said we would take it slow getting to Saldeya?” Kelsey asked carefully.
Gwen grinned. “You want to start flying, don’t you?”
Kelsey nodded, feeling slightly embarrassed. “Yeah, I want to move my timeline up and go meet the Winter Saint. Alana hinted that it’s quite important for me to go see them.” she answered honestly.
“Well, I don’t have a problem with it. It just means I get to the guild faster. Plus, we’ll have plenty of time to spend together once the guild gets situated out in the forest.” she said as she wrapped her arms around Kelsey’s neck and leapt up into her arms. "What does she know about the Winter Saint anyways?"
I wish I could tell her about Saint… I feel like there's a good chance I’ll be away for a while… These oaths are annoying.
Kelsey smiled guiltily. "I can't say much more than that, I'm sorry..."
Gwen nodded knowingly. "I kinda figured you two talked... It's okay, I understand. She seemed like the type to make an Oath for everything."
Kelsey simply smiled, not letting her frustration show. “I’m going to be flying quickly until we get to the border. You may just want to close your eyes and relax since we won't really be able to talk.” Kelsey said as she slowly lifted off the ground.
Gwen nodded in understanding. “Alright, that sounds good.” she said as she nestled into Kelsey’s shoulder and closed her eyes.
Once Gwen was settled, Kelsey raised them into the air and began flying south towards Saldeya. She decided that she would move as fast as she could without creating sonic booms. Thankfully, that was still several times faster than the actual speed of sound thanks to her Wind Resistance skill being at level nine. The border was only a few hundred kilometers away from the pond they had arrived at which meant that Kelsey made it to the border between Cardona and Saldeya in just under twenty minutes.
Flying is just so much faster. We should have done this in the first place, honestly. But it was nice to just spend some time traveling.
As they arrived at the border, Kelsey slowed down and then lowered them to the ground gently. “We’re here.” Kelsey said as she let Gwen down.
The border between Cardona and Saldeya was slightly different than Kelsey had expected. The two nations were separated by a long mountain chain, which meant that the South King’s Road in Cardona led directly to a gate in front of a long tunnel that cut directly through the mountain. The gate was a large, wrought iron monstrosity with a hinge design that opened outwards towards Cardona. It seemed that the nations considered the mountain chain itself to be part of Saldeya’s territory, because the men and women guarding the gate were all wearing national colors that Kelsey was unfamiliar with. There were certainly guards from Cardona present, but they numbered in the tens rather than the several hundred she saw from the Saldeyans.
In Cardona, most of the guards wore the blue and gold color scheme that were the national colors of Cardona. On top of that, adventurers were frequently working in guard positions in Cardona, which meant that guards had incredibly varied uniforms on average.
That did not appear to be the case for Saldeyan guards. They were all wearing completely identical uniforms and were using identical equipment. The uniform was a forest green color with brown accents. They all wore a chain shirt over a cloth gambeson and had plate pauldrons, arm guards, and leg guards. Each of them had a sword at their hip with a shield and spear tied on their backs. The spears were short, roughly two meters long rather than the nearly three meters long spears that Kelsey was accustomed to in Cardona.
As Kelsey and Gwen drew closer to the gates, Kelsey quickly identified the guards and realized something shocking. Their levels were pitiful. Every single one of them was a Warrior based class, and all but one of them were below gold rank. The only person she saw that was above gold was a level 129 Warrior who seemed to be in command of the gate guards.
These guards are clearly not designed to keep out people like Gwen and myself. It is quite surprising that they don’t have a single Immortal tier person watching such an important strategic objective.
Kelsey saw that on the Cardona side of the border, there were significantly less guards, but there was an Immortal who seemed to be in charge. They were only level 265, but still, the entire Saldeyan contingent could be effortlessly thrown away by the single Immortal on Cardona’s side if the two were to battle for some reason.
“Hey, Gwen, what’s with the low leveled people on the Saldeyan side?” Kelsey asked as they approached.
Gwen’s face broke into a grimace. “Saldeya is preparing for war with the elven kingdom, all of their strong military assets were likely siphoned from places like this to be used on the front lines.”
Kelsey had forgotten all about the war Gwen told her about. “Right… Why are they fighting?” she asked.
“Territory. The King of Saldeya, Salance Lyarti… He’s a bloodthirsty, expansionist, and worst of all, Immortal ruler that believes the Elves have had too much territory for too long. Every fifty or so years he gears up the entire nation and strikes out at the elves. He’s never made a single iota of progress, but he tries over and over again, killing his countrymen in the process.” Gwen finished with no shortage of venom in her voice.
Kelsey shook her head in disgust. “Pathetic. But there's something I don't understand. Why even bother with an army? Just take your strongest ten or fifteen people and take over the nation that way. I could fight an infinite number of gold rankers and they would never even have a chance of hurting me. Why even bother sending the men and women to their deaths? What’s the point?”
Gwen looked up at her, a bit of surprise on her face. “Right… you don’t know... All of the nations have a treaty that they signed that dictate the rules of war. It basically says that people have to fight people around their level. If a nation is found bending or breaking that rule, the other nations have a pact to punish them.” Gwen said a bit less angrily this time. “It’s the one rule that the King Lyarti actually follows. Wars are bloody and terrible because it’s better than the alternative.”
Kelsey knew what she meant. She could imagine the kinds of horrors a real, all-out war would bring. A single strong Immortal could wipe out most cities. The idea of a few thousand soldiers losing their lives in a battle would certainly be preferable to regular civilians being slaughtered by the millions.
“I don’t like it. But I do understand.” Kelsey said sadly as they neared the gates.
At the gates there was very little traffic moving in or out of the tunnel. In total, Kelsey could count less than 50 people that were currently traveling between the two nations. That meant that they would hopefully have an easy time getting through the gates with both of them being Platinum ranked adventurers.
There was still a small line that Kelsey and Gwen were forced to wait in, but getting to their turn took less than ten minutes.
When it was their turn, Kelsey and Gwen both pulled out their guild cards and handed them to the guard that was checking identification. “Two Platinum ranked adventurers traveling into Saldeya at a time like this? What business do you have in our nation?” the man asked gruffly.
Gwen answered quickly. “I am the leader of a Saldeyan guild. Saldeya is also my home nation, I am simply returning. My friend here is a new recruit.” she finished as she pointed at Kelsey.
The guard looked at Gwen skeptically. “Can you prove that you are in fact who you say you are? Ms. Gwendolyn… no last name.”
No last name? Odd. She has never mentioned any family members except for Abby. I would have thought she would have a last name from her marriage though…
Gwen nodded easily as she pulled a small ring out of her coin pouch. “This is my guild signet ring.”
The guard inspected the ring for several seconds before handing it back to Gwen. “How do I know you didn’t just steal this?” he asked haughtily.
Gwen’s brow furrowed in brief frustration. “Listen. I just handed you a guild card and a signet ring that are both Platinum ranked. If I were able to steal those things from an Immortal, do you really think I would need to fake identification? On top of that, if I have the ability to steal those things, and were trying to sneak into this worthless nation, why would I bother coming through your little checkpoint?” Gwen asked venomously.
The guard looked annoyed by Gwen’s sudden hostility, as if he had done nothing wrong. The man clearly considered calling the other guards to arrest them or something but thought better of it. “Fine. You and your friend may enter. Don’t be causing trouble in Saldeya, we don’t need two Immortal adventurers giving us problems at a time like this.” he finished angrily as he stepped aside to let Kelsey and Gwen through.
Gwen didn’t say anything, she simply snatched her guild card from the guard’s hand and stepped through the door.
“Thank you very much, sir.” Kelsey said cooly as she took back her guild card and stored it inside her dimension.
After that frustrating interaction, Gwen and Kelsey walked through the long tunnel and entered the nation of Saldeya.