"Oof," came a sound of annoyance from the young noblewoman's lips as they bounced over yet another patch of cobblestones. She had hoped that since they were in the city, the ride would at least be smooth, but of course she didn't have that kind of luck.

With a sigh, she put down the map of the area she had been looking at. It would take them almost half a day to reach the eastern rim of Lake Iota, on which Kadena and the adjacent towns were built.

"Since the mine is near the lake, we can take refuge in the easternmost town, Dillard. After that, we will get some rest, and visit the mine first thing tomorrow morning."

Of course, Rowena couldn't take her maids with her, instead Sir Sean and Sir Yaakov sat in front of her, briefing her on how they would proceed. Next to her sat the noble Lucan van Belheim, listening with his eyes closed and an untrustworthy smile on his lips.

'Why would he sit next to me?' They could have sent another carriage. They only had two, one with Rowena, the other noble, Sean and Yaakov, while the other carried Count Klein and her first brother, along with two of Lodden's officials and a few extra guards who rode on horseback alongside them.

It wasn't too surprising that an Empire as wealthy as Lodden would have its own Tevak horses, but the riders on those same mounts that had to ride next to us seemed a bit strained. And she wasn't the only one who noticed.

"Well, well, I guess the Imperial Knights need a lot more training."

The two knights sitting across from the noble youngsters jumped at his words, while Rowena just gave him a swift sideways glance. 'As I thought. It's the verbal diarrhea again.' She felt a touch of kinship, that was for sure.

Well, good for him, the windows were closed and they drove at a speed that no knight would be able to take while trying to listen to what was said inside the carriage. Their guards, in particular, didn't look comfortable with just one of those tasks alone.

"You probably shouldn't say that outside the carriage, unless you want to be scolded." And with that, she meant to say: 'Probably more like quartered and eviscerated, I'm not going to lie.

"Oh?" he said, finally opening his eyes to look at her when she almost thought he might actually be falling asleep, "Are you worried about me, My Lady?"

"Should I not be? I thought we might as well get along," the lady mused, "after all, we are both nobles." It was a bit of a mean spirited remark, thinking of their last conversation.

"I'm honored." But it slipped off him as if he were made of Teflon. "But what has to be said has to be said. After all, there are two highly respected knights of the Arlen Empire with us to witness this embarrassment."

'Highly respected?' she thought, 'How would you know that?' With a raised eyebrow, she turned her head to give him a questioning look, but he just smiled at her, unchanged.

Not that she wanted to disrespect these two knights, whom she now held in high regard, but the knights outside their carriage were also Holy Knights, as she could tell by a small engraving on their armor.

It seemed insignificant, but it was a shield-shaped crest with a symbol that looked like a rising sun. The Church of Aurora held their graduates in high esteem, and even though they were now part of the Lodden Empire, since a knight's first loyalty was to his sworn master, they still showed where they came from.

Ironically, the two uniformed knights in front of her had no such emblem, which was why no one could tell their rank at first glance. The First Division wore iron armor exclusively on the battlefield, as they didn't necessarily need heavy armor outside of vast, hostile environments.

A Holy Knight would have Mana flowing through their Mana Paths all over their body, which meant they were healthier, sturdier, stronger, and faster. But except for a few rare situations, they trained physically, helping their bodies with speed rather than strength through Mana.

Rowena herself was a negative example of why putting everything into strength was such a bad idea, it could be considered a last ditch effort, as she remembered trying to strengthen herself just for a few sword blows. Busting strength required almost all the bones, ligaments, and muscle tissue attached to the strengthened part to be strengthened as well, because the pressure when hitting harder had to be compensated.

While speed was mostly one of those things reinforced, pulling everything else along with it, strength needed everything to pull at once. When an incoming blow came that you couldn't block, you had to put everything you had into that one parrying move.

'And trying to 'lightly' speed up your steps or movement in general wasn't so easy when heavy armor was weighing you down. Leather armor wasn't light either, but it got an easy pass compared to iron.'

Doing so too often would drain one's Mana and leave the caster without protection or weapon. What would have happened to her, had she not constantly, excessively collected Mana for weeks on end before reaching Eisenwacht?

'I could have died in the middle of buttfuck nowhere, how sad is that? Give me a break.' Feeling a little nauseous at the memory, she leaned back and closed her eyes, really trying not to think about it too much.

"Are you all right, Lady Rowena?" Sir Sean asked, "You seem rather pale." And he had already taken her usual skin tone into account.

"I'm fine, don't worry about me." Still, they probably needed a few more hours. 'What did he say, Dillard?' She had seen the town on the map.

There was only one mine that wasn't in the mountain ranges near the coast. Those mountain ranges were the ones that were no problem, because salt was everywhere. But there was one, in a somewhat rocky mountain section, not as high as the others, just outside the lake.

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It was obvious to her that this was their destination from the first glance at the map. "So when we get there, how will we proceed?"

"We will go in as planned, the location has apparently been enclosed and fenced off. Once we are comfortable, we will discuss the actual raid with the Knights of Lodden."

"I see."

"You don't need to fear," the young noble next to her said, "we won't be going into the mine, we will be with the officials and the knights who are on standby, just to observe."

"I'm not in fear," Rowena replied without haste, "but there's never too much caution in dealing with Visitors." She put her hands on her knees, knowing that they would probably tremble if she took them off.

Her knights noticed, but said nothing. 'She must be thinking of the incident in Eisenwacht,' he guessed correctly, despite being wrong about her reasons.

Sir Yaakov was, after all, one of the men who had been there to protect her, yet one of the two times she had been in danger, possibly the only time her life had been truly threatened, he had not been there with her.

They hadn't talked about the incident, but Yaakov knew that Sean felt the same as he did, maybe even more so, since he had a longer and deeper relationship with the Grand Duke and his family.

And his thoughts were spot on. As an orphan, taken in by the Grand Duke at a young age and personally trained, he was that cliché knight who only ever saw his master. But then the world arose behind that master's back, as his own ability to use Mana was kindled.

Though he had climbed his way up to the position he held, overtaking noble knights such as Yaakov Mizrahi and taking the place of the First Division's second-in-command. And yet he let the precious daughter of his sworn master, the Grand Duke, get into a situation such as this.

She could have died without him even grasping the situation. 'This won't happen again.' His hands balled into tight fists in his lap.

Lucan, on the other hand, glanced out of the window every now and then. The carriage rattled along the white granite path that led down a long road. They could have taken a boat on the canal, but even though the road was a bit more winding than the straight waterways, the boat would have been so slow that it would have taken them much longer.

As it was, they had been in the carriage since this morning, but now it looked as if it was nearing sundown. "We arrived at Dillard, my lady."

Rowena jerked, hearing someone say something after a long silence that made her doze off just a little. And for a second she thought his voice sounded familiar, distorted by her slightly foggy head.

She couldn't believe that riding in such an uncomfortable vehicle was almost normal to her now - so much so that she could even fall asleep in it. But that was probably due to the fact that they had mostly traveled on smooth surfaces.

'I would still rather teleport myself.' At least her bottom and thighs would thank her for that.

But at any rate, he was right about his announcement, they really had arrived. It wasn't long before the sun sank behind a mountain range in the distance, tinting the small buildings a reddish hue.

This town wasn't as white as the ground they were walking on, which had also accumulated stains that weren't as noticeable in Kadena. As they stepped out of the carriage, a look around told them that they were out of the big city.

Instead of the hay- or metal-covered cabins she had seen in Eisenwacht, or the red clay tiles in Arlen's capital, Avarinth, here they used dark wooden shingles to cover their houses, contrasting with the mostly white and gray stone walls.

"Is that ebony?" she asked curiously, as her violin seemed to be made of the same material, and the distinct blackish hue made her feel as if it were.

"Indeed," one of the Imperial Knights, who looked as if he had been through something terrible, answered her happily, "we are supplied by one of our merchants who has connections to the Southern Tail."

Actually, they also grew in the Lodden Empire, but they would not have enough if they only cut their own trees, especially since their own wood was of higher quality and therefore more expensive, so they used it for special crafts, not for roofs.

They looked for the nearest inn to drop off the few things they had brought, but of course, even unsuspecting carriages drawn by black war horses and guarded by Imperial knights would attract attention. Since they were close enough to the capital, yet far enough to simply wish for some peace out there, the people were quite reserved about the whole ordeal.

For Rowena, that was just the right thing, she only wanted to go to sleep and take the next day in stride. But getting to bed and up again wasn't as easy as she thought it would be. She didn't have a servant with her, which meant that one of the workers from the inn had to help her close her dress in the morning.

Her brother had already left when she got up to get a glimpse of what they would be up against. He went with Sir Yaakov and the Imperial Knights who came with them. Only Sir Sean stayed behind, so she would not be alone with Count Klein and the Lodden officials.

With a sullen look on her face, she examined her breakfast. It was a great breakfast, but it felt strange not to receive it from either Norina or Ava. With a sigh, she felt like she couldn't eat, even though she knew she needed nourishment as she was still recovering the Mana she lost in Eisenwacht.

The other members of her group looked at the only girl at their table as empty plates gathered next to her. One of them had seen it before, one had seen it many times, and the rest could not imagine what they were seeing.

Blinking, Lucan pushed a bowl of scrambled eggs in her general direction and waited for it to vanish into thin air. It felt like a spectacle to him, one he watched with bated breath. Would she ever stop?

Rowena, on the other hand, stared off into space while wolfing down a small sausage with bacon as if on auto-pilot.

She had to figure out what would come next after they tried the salt, which she knew would work. Maybe she could claim the rights to some kind of reward? After all, she had promised Ansgar and Iris to bring them a chunk of virgin silver.

If they didn't give it to her for free, she couldn't help it, but if they freed the silver mine, it would at least mean that she could buy it at a reasonable price, right? With an unconscious nod, she leaned back in her seat, put a hand on her belly, and remembered the one thing she had promised that might actually be easy to fulfill. That just left a million others.

'No, not true, I only promised one impossible thing. Other than that, I just need to get back to Arlen without any unforeseen situations and without a marriage agreement tied to my back. Baby steps.'

No one could fathom the sight she was presenting, but they didn't find it in them to comment, as they had no intention of ruining the mood. All they had to do was get ready, get back in the carriage, only this time without the guards, as they had taken their horses to go out first.

The fence they reached wasn't a solid one, but a simple barricade made of a piece of iron about two to three inches thick that surrounded the entrance to the mine like a hemisphere, supported on the ground by diagonal bars.

The white granite rock formation behind it wasn't even that high, but it would be impossible for a Visitor to climb up, as the Surface was inside the mine, below ground level. The shaft was full of them, if what the officials had said was anything to go by.

She couldn't hear or see much, since the fence had no holes to look through. She watched as they climbed a movable staircase to jump over the fence, since a Visitor couldn't climb that and a door would only give them an easy opening.

Rowena walked over to the mountain, outside the fence, and touched the stone, which was cool to the touch. Only then did she hear it. A screeching sound, which made her shoulders rise and her hair stand on end.

There was also metal clanking, words in the distance, but all she could hear was the screeching she hadn't heard in a long time. Her feet moved almost by themselves as her hand searched her thigh for the weight of her compound bow, looking for some comfort even though she didn't even have an arrow ready.

They had begun to fight, but just like Lucan, who had strolled over to her side, she couldn't do anything but stand and wait.