Chapter 154 –

Archie took Eiya back to the Princess. But before that, he took her shopping. He bought her some clothes. Her robe and his coat were not going to be enough to trudge through the snow. She was happy, thanking him with a smile.

Back at the castle, the Princess met with Eiya. Their first meeting was an exchange of words interrupted by the Lord of the Demesne, Mia’s father. He took a good look at the long-eared one before nodding his head. He glanced at Archie, craned around and told them about what he knew.

Who she was and where she came from. How that she’s the only alive of her race. Eiya smiled wryly at how blunt and inconsiderate the Lord was. Still, she let him talk and at the end, the Lord left the Princess’s office. The Princes asked, “What will you do now?” which Eiya replied with a face befitting of someone that was lost. She wasn’t able to answer. She just left and told the Princess. “I want to look around,” before leaving.

She had recovered her strength by the time she arrived at the palace. She turned into a group of blue sparkling butterflies that flew out of the window, leaving only a trail of sprinkle dust. The Princess looked at the dust while she was giving this sad look. Finally turning her eyes to Archie, she said. “Please look after her,” and left with Mia, back to her piles of documents.

The two started working the documents. Archie turned his body and walked straight out of the door. He made a sigh, he looked left and then right. He thought where the trail of sparkling dust was. He was some on the right, whole none on the left. With that, he went to the right and swayed his head to look at the left behind sparkling dust.

He continued following the trail of sparkling dust until he found himself on a flight of stairs leading up to a platform. “Where is she going?” he asked. He continued climbing until he saw the light coming from above the platform. He took a step. He looked around for her but she was nowhere to be found. The crew of the platform was just standing around, fiddling with the equipment. There was a disk that Archie doesn’t recognize. The mechanics were testing it and their faces was that of utter bafflement.

He took a good look at what they call radar’. The machine was quite interesting it could detect any living or machine within a distance. After checking the machine out, Archie, he left the place and followed the trail of sparkling dust.

The search led him to the tower. He could tell that there were dust prints on the walls of the tower. The tower was tall, but, Archie took a big sigh and climbed the tower. Scaling the tower was easy. His runes have greatly enhanced his condition that he could easily make use of it to scale the tower.

Once he arrived on top of the tower. He saw Eiya facing the cityscape of the city. The sun went down, the stars started to appear and the moon’s light made her hair glitter. Sparkling blue butterflies joined her body. Her hair billowed. And she looked up at the sky with a sorrowful gaze.

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Archie could not say anything as he watches her back. That was a face he could not say anything. He just watched her stand there. The blue sparkling butterflies surrounding and joining her body. It took some time but she looked over her shoulder and plastered a bitter smile.

“This is an odd era isn’t it?” she said. “I never knew that in such time things would advance. My race would have loved to see these kinds of wonder and at the same time mumble about your race straying away from nature.”

He walked over to her side. “Well, the past months have been crazy. It’s like someone started something. The cog started to turn when the two nations attacked Avilla. The appearance of flying ships, walking machines, tanks with four legs, and now the discovery of runes and this magic of yours is shocking.”

“In the past months...so you are saying that all of these things were unknown to you?”

“I,” he paused, “was just a Proctor in some isolated village that was bringing taxes to the Warlord of Avilla. And then bombs started to fall from flying ships. I fought without knowing anything and somehow destroyed an entire fleet of them with the help of a nameless friend. It has been a crazy ride and I think that it would be more tiresome than it should be with a whole Empire gunning to take over this entire continent.”

She looked at him. “This continent was connected to many nations. We have galleons going to the North but ‘them’ arrived and with a single flash of light, turned everything into stone. Heroes gathered, and somehow we manage to fend them off through completing a barrier. I was wounded heavily and was sealed. But it looks like I slept too long and now I face an unreal age of flying ships. Even our magic cannot do something like that and through our years we never had the thought of making use of runes to fly.”

“You know, you could just wander the nations,” he said.

“I could,” she made a weary smile. “But not after hearing that from a King that has all of this, but is still worried about the Empire that he is facing. If I am guessing right, then he is planning to have this entire continent covered in mists. The same method we did to hide our cities from ‘them’.”

“Is that so?” he asked clearly amazed by what he heard. “Then does that mean?”

“Yes, with that, the enemy would not find this continent. But I fear that by the time we are finished. This whole continent will be at war with the enemy Empire. They crossed the sea. I think this nation can hold them off. But they will keep coming back. The Empire this continent faces seemed to span miles of land. And if we do not create this barrier, then war will continue until this nation does not surrender.”

“Then we need to raise that barrier.”

“Yes, but it will be difficult.”

“I’ll help you.”

“I see. Thank you.”

The two looked at the stars. The cold winter breeze made them feel the cold. But the stars and auroras keep them from feeling it.