18 days after the explosion - The Palace

The griffons were expensive monsters to raise, so only rich people could afford them. They were fast and strong, but since it was a dangerous job to tame and keep one, only people with ample resources were capable of having them.Even inside the palace, they only had eight in the stables.

Of course, they were worth every copper since they were one of the fastest and safest ways of travel. Unlike land were a lot of creatures could benefit from the mana veins, the sky had a lot of less mana, so flying creatures were usually weaker than land creatures. Of course, there were a lot of strong monsters that could fly, but the mana regeneration was lower when they flew, so they weren't constantly flying, making it harder to find a strong flying monsters just flying around.

And the griffons are one of the strongest flying creatures out there, so unless you were unlucky enough to find a dragon flying around, you were pretty safe

And, of course, the prince was secretly excited since he almost never had an opportunity to travel in a griffon before, and the times he did were really fun. Not only were the griffons extremely cool, the feeling of the wind in your face and the wonderful view was excellent

"Well, let's put everything over the griffons and lets depart"(prince)trying to hide his excitement in his voice

"Yes!"(shoutsx4)said the 4 girls excited on the rare chance of flying on a griffon

"Ehh sir..."(guard a) tried to draw their attention

"what?"(prince)

"We are going by carriage"(guard a) crushed everyone's expectations

18 days after the explosion - Carriage

It's turn out there was too much luggage for the griffons to carry, a side effect of taking 4 womans on a trip. The travel time took in consideration the resting time of the griffons, and they were traveling in horses capable of using mana, so they didn't have to spend extra time traveling, but it wasn't the same.

You could see the disappointed faces of everyone inside the carriage since it looked like all of them wanted to travel in a griffon. Well, at least they were happily stroking the cat and enjoying the view, even if they were a little down because of the lost opportunity

Luckily, since one of the policies in the wise king rule was to pave all the important roads to flourish the commerce(and army movement), so they were quite comfortable inside the carriage with the smooth terrain, preventing the travel from ben a pain in the a-s(both figurative and literally)

"So lina, enjoying the view?"(prince) tried to start a conversation since he had nothing else to do

"Yep! it's the first time I go so far away from the capital"(lina) excited since all this was new to her

"Where are we going prince"(Aria)curious about the destination since the prince had been pretty secretive to not ruin the surprise (the prince said)

"Well, today we are going to a laboratory from the magic university. They think I am a rich noble the archmage is trying to impress, so don't tell them the truth"(prince)didn't want for them to find out the truth since it would get annoying otherwise

So they chatted the rest of the way and arrived at the laboratory in the evening. The prince wasn't expecting an ambush on the way(even if he did prepare just in case) since he made sure only 3 people knew the travel path, him, the servant and guard A, that was also the coachman

But like he expected or at least wanted to expect, they reached their destination without problems. They got themselves well received by the people in the facility(since they thought they were money bags) and the prince was pleased that the servant chose a nice place to stay

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Usually when you think about a laboratory, you wouldn't think as a good place for a prince to stay, but since this was a special kind, it was a great place to stay

First, it had great security since it had important research that the empire was afraid to get stolen or leaked. Second, since important people stay from time to time, like the king or archmage, there were some special luxurious rooms for important guest. Finally, the mages treated them really well, so the stay was pretty enjoyable

Susan wasn't specially captivated since she study at the university, but the others(including the prince) enjoyed the different research that the university were conducting, and ou could see sparkles in the eyes of both Lina and Aria.

Well, the prince almost felt like killing the archmage when he found out this was actually laboratory that specialises in the research of dangerous materials, and that's why it had high security and was outside the city, since if an accident happened, they wanted to diminish the casualties as much as possible. But they also told him that no really dangerous research was conducted right now, so they were safe

In the end, they had a great time, and probably the first peaceful day the prince had in weeks.

19 days after the explosion - Carriage

They left early in the morning since they had a long day of travel ahead. The prince went to sleep a little later than the rest since he was curious about some alchemy research they were conducting, so he went to sleep inside the carriage. Meanwhile, the other girls chatted excited about what they saw yesterday(especially Lina and Aria) and hoped that they could come back on their way back to the Capital

They did stop to eat in a small village, and the girls found out where they were going now. It looked like this time they were heading to a villa from the Duke, and like the Laboratory, the would spend the night there and leave in the morning. Susan offered this villa the day after she found out where they were heading, and this gave the prince the idea of testing all his close associates

Since too many leaks have been going on lately, the best thing he could do was to give different information to each one and see if something got leaked. Depending on what got leaked, he could guess who did it, but even if no information got leaked, he couldn't afford to completely truth them until he finds who was leaking the information, or until he finds someone to stick all the responsibility

At least for now  he could trust the Archmage, and the prince hoped that his stay in the duke was as pleasant as the one at the laboratory, but just in case, he would keep an eye open since a villa was an easier target to strike, even if it wasn't the duke the one behind it. But like always, he would play the fool card like a champ

note: tried to upload it yesterday but the server was down

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