"How are they doing?" Andrei asked Percy with Celeste and Eve who's tending to their bruised and wounded friends.
"They are still asleep, they were crying all night after all" Celeste wiped the eyebrows of a young maid that slept at her lap and continued.
"For them this is a miracle, for someone like a queen, to send someone over to save people of their ranks. Even if we came from a group of families that served the royal family, it doesn't really change the fact that we are only servants.
So I'm really grateful to you Lord Andrei"
Percy bowed her head towards Andrei who was sitting at the carriage with her.
"It's alright really, also if it weren't for the queen and Claire's determination to save these people, I might haven't considered it at all, despite of what happened, I'm still a coward after all"
"The coward part is true, but Andrei if you didn't stepped up for the queen-my sister, I'm afraid that she might have went there on her own. Despite of how she looks, she's still a child at heart, if her loved ones are in danger, she would definitely save them even if she has to do it secretly. I'm thankful" Claire barged in the conversation, she's sitting at the side of Andrei. Her tone was indeed flat, but it sounded happy and Andrei could see from the side that she was smiling.
"I'm glad, thank you for coming Claire, if it weren't for you, this mission would really be hard, and I might even have broken my promise-that is to return to everyone with no one dying" This time it was Andrei who bowed to Claire who was clearly not looking at him.
"Did she just ignore me?" Andrei thought, while getting annoyed with the bumpy road of the carriage.
Originally Andrei constructed a plan with him as the only commander of both squads, which seemed impossible and foolish for Claire, so she volunteered to command the second squad in order to lighten the burden of Andrei, Andrei being a gentleman tried to refuse at first.
However with Claire's flat-toned blackmail and threats, he decided to give in easily.
After the long journey which took a day to arrive at the kingdom of Ethareri, when they passed through the gates Andrei could see the liveliness of the town.
"Compared to the settlement, the people here are livelier eh?"
"Of course, because the royal family of this kingdom is different from others" Claire responded to Andrei.
"Is that so? How different?"
"Well… it's a bit hard to explain, but I guess because the Queen, my sister deeply cares for its people, which I think it's pretty rare for large countries like Kydus and Sagrait, we're not as religious as Adrar though that has cults all over.
Also we don't allow slavery here, I don't know what's in the royal family's mind, but it's been like this since then, perhaps their family ties were so good that their traits were passed into each other"
"Hmmm… I'm a bit relieved that you don't allow slavery here, anyway thank you for explaining.
From what you've said it's really a rare, but to think that the traits were passed into the royal family line was really this impressive, I have to say it was really a good parenting!"
This time Claire became silent and looked away from Andrei, who became nervous and tried to change the topic.
"Anyway, the way you say "the royal family" isn't it your family? I think you should say "my family" right?"
At this question Claire also didn't answer. "Did I just add more gasoline to the fire?" Andrei started getting worried, he retraced his statements, and found out how insensitive his statements were.
He stood up from where he was sitting and bowed to her.
"Sorry, it was insensitive of me"
"It's alright, I'm used to it after all"
However due to the shaking Andrei lost balance and fell over Claire who was sitting but Andrei managed to hold on the wall at Claire's back, but still their faces was so close that Claire became flustered.
Andrei hearing no protests from Claire stayed a bit on his position while looking at her deep gray eyes.
"To think that you were not just a dumbass, but also a scheming pervert" Claires dead-fish eyes appeared and looked at Andrei as if an insect have attached to her.
His eyes were poked and his left cheek became a red mess in a mere second.
Awkward silence filled up the carriage, Andrei had no choice but to look outside where the carriage was passing, while Eve was silently fanning his red cheeks from his side.
Unlike what he saw, at the settlement there were less gloomy and sulking people. It was so lively that if someone were to put a lively music everyone would sing and dance together-as what he saw in the musical movies.
Kids are playing together, mothers chatting with each other, a blacksmith talking with what they seem as his regular customers, nobles shopping with their servants who doesn't look unhappy at all.
Since it was a covert mission, the details and glory of their mission was only known to the queen, her servants and the golden order of knights led by Erneis. So unlike the tradition of the kingdoms of the middle ages, no one greeted them at the streets.
When their carriage passed by, they were just looked at as merchants.
After a few minutes they finally reached the steel gate of the castle. Andrei reminisced the day when he tried to escape because of his "Lone Adventurer" scheme and smiled at his simplicity.
"To think that my lone adventurer plan would turn into rescuing people using guerilla tactics" he shrugged his shoulders.
Claire went to the guards and when they noticed who she was, they hurriedly bowed and opened the gates.
The carriage went around the castle where the large training ground was, it was also where the golden knights were lining up together with Michaela and the maids and butlers that were left.
When Michaela saw the carriage, she immediately dropped her shield and rapier and immediately went to the carriage. Her face got an expression of both fear and excitement.
A few seconds the maids and butlers came out in one of the carriages, with the rescued hostages, some were still unconscious and were being carried, and some like Celeste could walk, and were assisting the process.
Michaela showed them a smile, and the conscious maids and butlers bowed in return.
All wounded and unconscious have been immediately carried to their quarters by the maids who were waiting to tend to them, and the ten-man team have already lined up with their beat-up clothes and dirty faces.
Michaela worried why Claire and Andrei weren't showing up. Her fear got stronger and stronger, as she couldn't see the faces of the servants as they were bowing as they lined up.
However, this was cut short when Andrei was kicked out from the carriage by Claire.
Apparently he argued with Claire that she should go down first, but Claire refused, insisting that the betrothed couple should meet first.
When Andrei tried to bring up that they were also sisters, and should meet and embrace when they've reunited. Claire immediately opened the door and kicked him out, as Michaela who was waiting outside has already started to get more worried the more time have passed.
Michaela seeing Andrei sitting on the ground, she made a deep sigh and smiled from the bottom of her heart.
Andrei noticed this when he looked at her and also smiled back.
"This girl, I guess she was really worried huh?" Andrei thought as he fixed himself and stood up.
However, he was forced to sit into the ground again as Michaela have pounced on him already. With tears in her eyes, she hugged Andrei tightly.
Andrei tried to speak, being embarrassed at the position with the queen, while her knights are watching them, but when he felt tears on his shoulders, he just closed his eyes in the comfort of being embraced.
He hugged her back and stroke her long golden hair, which was braided this time.
"I'm home Michaela" he whispered to her ear.
"Mmm…" Michaela just nodded and hugged him even more tightly.
Claire only looked at the distance and gave a smile, looking at her crybaby sister hugging the Andrei, however at the same time she could also feel a prickling pain within her heart when Andrei hugged her sister in return and stroked her hair.
The little pain made her hold on to her chest however, when she saw her sister's crying face, the pain was overshadowed with joy. It's been so long that she has seen her sister longing and crying for someone.
Before Andrei came, Michaela was a workaholic girl who mostly focused on kingdom matters as the queen, her leadership made the kingdom prosper but somehow Claire had been worried about her sister's health and happiness.
If it's for her people Michaela wouldn't stop working on it until the result is enough to make the kingdom and her people happy and prosper.
That was also the reason why she went to Kydus when a prince started courting her. Hoping to form an alliance in order to achieve her people's safety, even if that would mean marrying the prince in the future.
Claire was opposed of the idea but Michaela quickly rejected her concern saying that she'll just be evaluating whether if the prince has a good nature, enough to bring her people happiness and make her nation prosper.
But instead of returning with an alliance and the prince of Kydus, Michaela returned in a beat-up condition with a strange man in strange clothes in tow.
Michaela agonized over the fact that she became so careless that made her subordinates sacrifice their lives for her.
However, with the strange man she brought with her, the strange man who saved her and the subordinates she agonized about, in an instant Michaela changed.
Claire was unsure of what really happened to his sister, but when she saw her expression when she jumped on Andrei.
An expression full of happiness and relief.
"This is how it is to fall in-love huh?" she thought to herself.
"Maybe, me also... someday I could shed my tears for someone, just like that" she smiled and put both of her hands together at her back and tilted her head a bit while looking at the betrothed couple.