"These four are my companions."
One by one, Ronan's companions introduce themselves to everyone. The first one is the bald, adult man with a curled brown mustache, carrying the axe.
"My name is Edward Edmond. I'm a Diamond rank adventurer."
Followed by the lady who mentioned the knights with shackles all over their body.
"I am Sasha Bandeaus, Emerald, nice to meet you!"
Lira stared daggers at Sasha. Especially around her finely round chest.
"Damn. I feel like I'm being pissed off lately."
"Eh?" David looks at Lira with confused eyes.
"Lance. Diamond." The man who looks the same age as Ronan spoke with a dead tone.
And lastly the young girl with the silver hair, and is carrying a staff with both her hands.
"I'm Rein Ednia. I'm a Diamond rank adventurer..." The timid girl bows her head once again then quickly averts her gaze over Edle.
"Seriously?! It's rare to see four high ranked adventurers forming a party with someone that has the rank of a silver." Jinrah stated.
"Well, Miss Christa is a famous Emerald rank adventurer with a party of two silver ranks, just like me. So there should be no surprise, right?"
"You have a point." David responded.
"Anyway, we all came from the village in the north. We also registered as an adventurer in the guild just a while ago." Ronan shows his own piece of the Queen's Call quest. The others follows what he did and showed their own. "We also got these quests."
Edle tries to clarify the quests that the five shown. After making sure that it is indeed the Queen's Call quest, the prince of Reilaea tells the five of them:
"I see. Then, you can stay here."
So is what he told them.
"Thank you, Edle! Now then, shall we continue where we left off?" Christa suggested.
Right now, in his mind, he is curious about the five. Especially about Ronan who he can see to be so close to the girl with the crimson red eyes. His brows furrow in concern.
"Well, commander Tedric. Tell us what you think. From the battle not long ago, to here. Do they seem to be acting strange to you?"
Following Christa's question, Tedric wordlessly observe the people who are trying to break out of the chains that are restraining them. As he does, he is reminded of the moments in the battlefield near the walls of Reilaea.
The exchanging of swords, knights on each side falling left and right. It was a bloodbath. But at one point, during the ongoing battle, something from the knights of Kruule caught the attention of Tedric. And that is the expression they show on their faces.
The knights of Kruule seem to have one single purpose, and that is to attack the capital of Reilaea. All of them were violent, relentless, merciless, that's what Tedric sees on first glance. But as the events progresses, he can see that some of them were rather thrilled by the killing.
The crinkle of their eyes, the upturn of the corners of their mouth, their crooked bare teeth they're showing off as they took the lives of the knights of Reilaea. They enjoy the act of killing as though it is normal for them to do it. They do not give a damn about the ones that fall prey to their blades.
But, among them, there are knights who are also killing without the feeling of regret, without mercy. They scream their war cry just like the others. They swing their blades upon their enemies. They kill as they smile on the death of their foes. But somehow, they give off a different vibe.
To Tedric, their battle cry are the same, but the way they charge into battlefield is like they lack the willingness to confront the enemy. Their blade swings upon their enemies, but the strength of their grip feels like they are more worried for the enemy rather than themselves. They kill with a smile on their faces. But after doing such an act, their eyes were filled with regret.
"Yes. I thought the same thing."
As if she can read Tedric's mind, Christa spoke to the commander. Telling him that the same came to her mind.
"The roar they scream despite the unwillingness to fight. The feeling of worry, or rather, fear of hurting people, the eyes that are filled with regret and pain for killing against their will."
"Are you saying...?" Edle asked.
"That's right. Forced to put up an act. Obey and you will live, do not and you will pay with your life. Am I right?" Christa looks at one of the captured knights who's mouth were wide open in surprise after hearing Christa's spoken words.
But shortly after, his shocked face transformed into him being aggresive once again, as he continue to try and shake off the chains.
Seeing the knights perform these actions, Edle doubtfully responds to the girl with the crimson eyes.
"Are you sure about that? It doesn't look like they even feel regret of coming and trying to destroy the capital and killing off some of the knights of Reilaea."
Ronan and his companions agrees to Edle, so is Jinrah and Lira. But among them, Sieghart were the one who seem to be favored with Christa's opinion.
"No, I think Christa is right." Sieghart steps in into the conversation between Christa and Edle. "I saw the way he was surprised of what Christa said to Tedric. It's like she actually got it all right on the money."
"Obey and you will live, do not and you will pay with your life. If these words are true, then such a slight reaction would make more than enough sense." Tedric followed suit. "Right now, either it is a dark spell or a curse, they are being forced to obey what they are instructed."
"Why..." Lira said with a downhearted face. "...To be forced to do such a thing against their will."
"No, no, that ain't quite right." Said Christa with a confident smile on Lira. Everyone were onto her as she continue to speak. "If they were binded by a dark spell or a curse, only what their master instructed them what to do can they only do. If King Castile can control and give them absolute orders, why let them have their own will intact? He can just tell them to throw their life without even knowing it."
"...You have a fair point." David replied. "I doubt even King Castile is dumb enough to let something like this happen."
"If they weren't binded by a curse or a dark spell, telling them that they will die of disobeying is pointless if he can't cast a killing spell or curse, let alone ordering them returning to that Kingdom and offer their lives to him themselves. Unless..."
"...Unless, something else other than a dark spell or curse is binding them." Christa cuts in and continued Selene's words.
"Something else..." Edle turns the other way where he can't see the others. He held his thumb and index finger, curling around under his chin as he began to think thoroughly. "...Something... Something... Thing...!"
Edles soon comes to a realization. Christa grinned as she watches the Prince take orders.
"Bring Kaien here!"
"Commander Kaien...?" Tedric asked.
"If it's not any kind of spell or a curse, then it should be obvious that some magic item can be the reason for all that they're doing until now. Kaien can see the flow of mana and magic, we will need his ability to find it. Hurry!"
"Understood!"
Tedric replied and agreed to bring Kaien to the underground room. But when he was about to give order to the knights standing on both corners of the room, Christa stopped them.
"We don't need to go through that trouble."
"Huh?" everyone suddenly stops moving after hearing Christa.
"I know what that thing is."
"What?!"
"What is it, then?"
"Please stand back a little if you don't want to get hit by the electricity." Following Edle's question. Christa requested everyone to take a step back as she tries to pull something out of the pocket of her crimson tunic.
Everyone curiously followed Christa's instructions and decided to move backwards. Most of them are already in the corner of the room, waiting for the girl to pull whatever it is she is trying to take out from her pocket.
"Here it is!" Finally, Christa takes her hand out of the pocket and extends his arm above her head. Everyone's eyes were onto the girl's hand, but were all left confused.
At first glance it seems that she's not holding anything, but the way her hand looks is like she's got a grip on something. But few seconds later, a ring of light emitting small shards of electricity materialized, with her hand still grasping it.
The lightning grows intense until it begin to surround Christa.
"Christa...!" Edle screamed her name out of worry.
While Ronan and his companions were utterly shocked. Sieghart and Tedric, as well as Lira, Jinrah and David were astonished to see how powerful the lightning current is revolving around the girl's body.
"Don't worry, this ain't hurting me." Says Christa as she gives the look on Edle who seem like nothing's happening. "Aside from my clothes that are highly resistant to lightning, this level of electricity won't be enough to scratch me."
"Oh..." Says Edle in amazement. He clears his throat as he goes back into the issue. "Let's go back on topic. Are you saying that that ring of lightning you're holding is the thing that restraints them?"
Edle points his finger to the ring she's holding.
"Yes." Christa replies she hardens her grip on the ring. Until a sound of some sort of a hard object cracking rang through their ears. Slowly but surely, the lightning dissipates, and a physical image of a silver iron collar appear in Christa's grasp. "This is it."
"A collar...?" Says Tedric with his eyes wide open.
"Yeah. Here." Christa hands over the broken collar after breaking it with her hand. She assured the commander and everyone that it's already broken and will not activate anymore afterwards. Thus Tedric accepts the collar with a peace of mind.
"This collar... Are you saying that every single one of them has this thing around their necks and we can't see them?" The commander asks Christa.
"Well, not everyone. But a lot of them." Christa looks directly into the chained knight in front of them. "I'm sure you remember it pretty well, Prince Edle. But I can sense even the faintest of the presence of magic. If it's not well hidden that is."
After mentioning what happened in the past, Edle was once again remembered the day the girl in front of him, is the one that awaken the magic he thought he doesn't have.
Continuing her statement, Christa talks to everyone about the collar.
"It's probably just a simple invisibility potion or a low tier invisiblity magic, but it sure is enough to hide it. These collars are responsible for forcing them to obey King Castile and Princess Celestine."
"Where did you get this collar and all the information you have?" Ronan suddenly asked out of the blue.
Following Ronan's question, Christa talks to Edle about something not long ago.
"Edle, did I mention that I got something to tell you?"
Just then, Edle recalls the moment before he and King Ordeus parted ways with Christa and Selene.
"I have something I want to tell you but, it looks like we don't have the time left."
Edle immediately responds to Christa and tells her that he remembers it all too well. After that, she began to tell a story of the events that happened back in the Forest of No Return.
"Well, the day before yesterday, I encountered a knight of Kruule from the Forest of No Return to the south."
"That forest...? What in the world is a knight of Kruule doing there? No, more importantly, why are you in that dangerous forest?"
"Apparently, Christa's home was in that forest." Selene suddenly cuts in and responds to Edle. That gave him a surprise of course, knowing that someone actually lived in the dangerous forest.
"Seriously...?"
"Continuing what I said, there's this knight, along with the others that are trying to ruin the forest. And so I drove them away. But, that one knight, no matter how many times I try to push him away through fear, he won't move a muscle."
The knight that won't budge in fear of Christa takes up his sword and attacks the girl. But before long, he accepts his inevitable defeat. Later on, she asked what are their purpose on trimming down the forest. But unfortunately, the knight was only a small unit commander and doesn't have the privilege to get every information inside the Kingdom.
"What's surprising is that no matter how many times I instilled fear onto him, a knight like him did not faze before me. That just means that they really fear the King and the Princess of Kruule more than anything else."
Everyone find it really surprising. But one thing that got the attention of Edle is the unknown purpose of the knights of Kruule that are gathered in the known dangerous forest and seemingly hoarding the trees for themselves.
"That knight is quite impressive if I say so myself. But what are they doing in the forest and the trees?"
"I knew you'd ask." Christa pulls out her wooden sword and sticks it onto the ground. Everyone was surprised of how the tip of the wooden blade is capable of getting through the concrete for it to stand. "Well? Does my weapon ring a bell?"
Edle's eyes are on the wooden sword, gazing at it intently and curiously. The wooden sword that is obviously different than a regular wooden sword, let alone a normal sword. The sword that can pierce the ground effortlessly is surely bound with magic. All those thoughts came to Edle's mind. And before long he came with a realization.
"They are creating magic weapons...!"
"What?!" Everyone's face turned serious after the words that escaped Edle's mouth.
"Anything can be a weapon, so long as there is one capable of making them. Though in their case, they also put their effort into making it look like a real thing." Christa stated onto everyone in the room.
"Seriously..." Jinrah walked towards a sword of one of the Kruule knights lying down in the corner. He grabs it with a single hand and stared at it intently, observing every edge of the blade.
At one point, he felt how the magic sword was draining his mana. And so he decided to use his right pointing finger to touch the sharp edge of the sword. It was only a light tap, but the lower part of his finger was cut. As if his finger was cut by a knife that grinded a line in his skin.
"Ow...!"
"...? What the hell are you doing?! Huh?"
David angrily asks Jinrah what he did to make a scar in his finger. But Jinrah's eyes whose gazing at the blade as if he find something puzzled David.
Jinrah turns to everyone with baffled look. "Hey, isn't this kinda strange?"
David asks what he meant and approaches him. And as a response, Jinrah extends his arm that is holding the sword towards David. He handed the sword to the man.
"See for yourself."
David opens his left hand to grab hold of the grip of the magic sword. He wrapped his fingers around it. And afterwards, he felt a surge of mana inside him drastically being sucked away by the sword.
"Impossible. These things eats mana this much?!"
One by one, Tedric, Lira, Sieghart, and Edle and Christa grab hold of the other swords. And each of them felt their mana draining from their body just by holding the sword.
"It drains too much mana. A normal human will not be able to handle something like this!"
"You could say its a double edged sword."
Edle was utterly surprised to be able to feel the mana in his body actually being drained by the magic sword. After that, a question rose up to everyone. How can the soldiers wield these swords that even them are troubled at how huge the mana drain was.
Edle did not waste anytime, he released the sword in his hand. He asks the shackled knight in front of him, "You. How can all of you withstand the drain of mana in your body with these things?! I doubt that you can do such a thing without doing something that'll help you use these dangerous weapons in a long fight."
The knights did not answer the Prince's question, instead they continue to scream the name of Edle while telling him that they will kill him. Edle was starting to get fed up to the knights until he heard Christa.
"It's useless. Unless you take out the collars around their necks, none of them will tell you anything."
"Christa..."
"Though I kinda agree. If we want to learn a thing or two about these weapons, we can only ask these knights."
Lira's forehead curled up as she sneered at Christa. The girl herself said that as long as they have the collars, they will not speak. Thus, asking them anything at the moment would be pointless.
"If the collars are what's stopping them from doing so, then all we gotta do is to remove them, right?"
Everyone was speechless about the idea. But they cannot deny the fact that it's the only way to be able to talk with them.
"But you should know that we can't just remove them out of their necks. We don't know exactly how these collars work. If we did something by mistake, it might actually kill them."
The others agree to what Sieghart stated. It is a risky attempt to remove the collars that can produce an amount of lightning which can kill a normal person. If they did something wrong or even just by touching them, the collars may trigger. Killing the wearer in the process.
But Christa simply ignores their concerns as she walks up to the knight who turned quiet as he glare on the girl.
"It's a pain that I don't have a cloth with the same materials as my clothing. Guess we just gotta make do with what we have."
"Same materials...?"
What Christa told herself baffled Edle. What does she mean by not having a cloth with the same materials as her clothes? What does she mean by making do with we have? These questions were stuck in the Prince's head. Until the next thing that Christa did shocked not only him but the others as well.
"Wai... W-what do you think you're doing!?"
Not only Edle, everyone cannot process the reason why Christa is suddenly taking off her tunic in front of the knight. It was too late for them to act as she successfully undone her buttons and make her upper clothing slide off her arms.
As a result, her bare skin is exposed in front of the shackled knight. But her back was covered with her black long hair, making them think, especially Edle that her skin is fully exposed in front of the enemy.
Out of his concern, Edle rushed to pull Christa away of the knight's view. Which lead up to him seeing her visibly round chest wrapped with white bandages.
"Bandages?!"
Edle was astonished and also relieved that she's wearing an undergarment and how round it is.
"What's the matter?" She asked the flustered Prince.
"I-It's nothing." Edle averts his gaze from Christa's torso. "B-But before doing something like you did just now, make sure you're more than prepared. Remember your dignity as a woman..."
"Huh?" Edle walks away and headed back to where he was standing before he rushed into her.
"What's with him? Nevermind. Let's get on with it."
Disregarding Edle's actions earlier, Christa went to continue what she's trying to attempt.
"What are you planning, Christa?"
Sieghart asks Christa with a stern look.
"It'll be over quick, mister."
Christa extends her hands with her tunic towards the guy's neck. And as quickly as possible, she wrapped her clothes around the knight's neck. They can now see the shape of the collar that wasn't visible until Christa's clothe's revealed it.
And because her hands touched it, it's lightning current starts to burst inside the red tunic. The knight closed his eyes as he felt the lightning tingling around his neck, thinking that it would electrocute him to death. But thanks to Christa, the lightning seem to be completely sealed with the girl's dress wrapped around.
The man opens his eyes with tears around the corners of his eyes waiting to channel down his face. He was utterly confused because nothing happened. He is still shackled, he can see the people who captured him and the others in front of him, he is still alive.
"Don't worry, you're safe." The girl told the man she's facing.
"Huh?"
No words came out of everyone's mouth. They're all amazed at how a single dress can hold a powerful electric current inside of it.
"With this, he'll be able to answer our questions without worry."
"Seriously...?"
To reassure the Prince, Christa invited the knight to speak. The knight still appears to be afraid of speaking. But as it goes on, the faces of the people who are eagerly waiting for him to say a word pushes him to do so.
Little by little, both his upper and lower lips splits away from one another. Both rows of his teeth became visible as his mouth opens up even more. At that moment, as his tears started to flow down to his chin, he determined that the collar that restraints him to speak what he really feels is no longer strangling his will.
His eyes rolled on Christa's left shoulder, Christa noticed how his eyes moved as well. In that instant, with his pent up cry of despair, a word came out of his lips.
"You fucking...!"
"...!"
However, without knowing it by him or everyone in the room, the first two genuine words he ever spoke would also be his last.
"Huh? What are you...?"
"Hey...!"
It was a work of an instant, no one predicted that something like it would happen with everyone being on guard. In front of everyone, the knight who felt a glimpse of hope and freedom dies in tears.