"Kyuu~..." Lavenza looked slightly dejected while eating a piece of meat jerky.
"I know you are not a fan of beef jerky, but we don't have much food left and besides, we are only around a few kilometers away from the city. So for now, just bear it, besides I'm not enjoying jerky as well." Soren spoke before he bit hard his own piece of jerky.
Right now, the duo were swimming down the road for around an hour or so, but they hadn't seen any carriages coming from that road for at least that amount of time.
'Doesn't seem like there is a lot of traffic around these parts, considering the fact that I should have seen more carriages passing by or, at least any adventurers or just local travelers, but it's pretty barren for a main road.' Soren thought to himself while he kept chewing on his jerky before finishing it.
After going around that encampment, Soren decided to stay more vigilant, since he wanted to avoid contact with people due to the fact that there could still be people looking for him, thanks to those stupid news from the CNC and that was the last thing he would need right now. As the two of them were swimming, Soren noticed a couple of lantern poles that were lit, even though it was daytime for them.
"Why do they have the lights on and why can't I get any readings from it?" Soren said to himself after looking at it for a couple of moments before leaving. This was the first time he didn't get any info from the system for objects, so whatever those pillars were, they were definitely something that couldn't be affected by the system and that was something that made Soren rather uneasy. Since there wasn't much he could do about the pillars, he decided to leave them and deal with them at another time.
After leaving the two pillars behind, the duo went bcak on their way towards Crystalia City. But after five minutes passed, a fancy carriage appeared and was moving towards the same direction as Soren's direction and after a minute or so, it suddenly stopped right a bit further than Soren's location.
'What the... Why did it stop?' Soren thought to himself at the moment he saw the abrupt stop of the carriage, but once he saw the carriage a bit better, he saw that it was the same one as the one at the encampment a little while ago.
"Stay frosty." Soren said quietly to Lavenza and decided to keep his right hand close to the hilt of the sword. After that, Soren was way more on edge and had a serious expression on his face, but only half of his face could be seen because of that helmet, so it was rather hard to see Soren's full expression. After he made his way close to the carriage, he saw part of the interior and in there, he could see that older lady from before looking straight at him with a serious and kind of condecending look.
After passing by the carriage, the door of the carriage suddenly opened and the voice of a mature lady was heard:
"Get in."
Soren could clearly see that this entire situation was suspicious and possibly dangerous, so he decided to ask seriously:
"Why should I do something that a stranger says to me?"
In that moment, around a dozen guards dressed in shiny metal armor appeared in an instant from the other side of the carriage and surrounded Soren and Lavenza while pointing their swords at their heads. Soren was rather suprised and slightly scared now, due to the appearance of all those guards, so he decided to speak, albeit slightly nervously:
"A-Alright. I'm coming."
After Soren said that, he entered the carriage with Lavenza sitting on his shoulder, instead of swimming around him now. She had a feeling that she should stay very close with Soren while they are in these kinds of situations.
"What's with the critter?" The lady asked right as Soren was going to enter to carriage.
"She is my partner and she never leaves my side." Soren answered back with a calm voice and expression, although he still felt nervous from this mysterious lady.
"Just enter the carriage, I don't have time to play today." She said while looking down on him. After she said that, he entered the carriage and the moment he entered the interior, he immidiately noticed that something was off with it. The girl and boy from before weren't here, it was just Soren, Lavenza and the mysterious red-haired lady who looked at them like an insignificant insect, inside of this carriage. After a couple of minutes, the guards disappeared and the carriage started moving suddenly.
'Just what the hell does this lady want from me and where did those guards come out of? Talking about a troublesome situation.' Soren thought to himself, while looking around without moving his head.
After the carriage started moving, five minutes passed, those five turned into ten and said ten turned into twenty and at that moment, Soren decided to steel his resolve and break the silence:
"So? Why did you bring me here?" Soren asked with a serious expression. The lady just ignored Soren's question, as if she didn't hear it in the first place and just kept looking at him with a serious and unmoving expression on her face. This kind of expression creeped Soren a bit, so to take him mind from the constant staring, he decided to look a bit at the scenery that went by as the cartiage was moving. After a couple of minutes, to the left he saw again one of those pillars from before, but then he saw the same pillar to the right this time after around three or so seconds.
'Were those pillars put in the wrong place, because I didn't notice any weird turns that could mess with their positioning.' Soren thought to himself.
"Miss, may I ask what kind of business you have with me?" Soren decided to ask again the lady, but the response was the same as before. At that moment, Soren's expression turned very serious and decided to use his third eye, just in case he got transported in a different room or anything similar. Once he activated his third eye, he noticed two things that shocked him. The first thing was the fact that the right door, which was supposed to be just a carriage door, led to a big room that had at least a few figures standing, but he couldn't see the entire room. And the second thing that shocked him, was the disappearance of the red-haired lady once his thrid eye activated. This was a scary thing to see, so the moment he opened his eyes, he saw the lady as if she was just a statue and then gasped for a moment.
"Tsk." Soren was annoyed due to the fact that he was in another mess, but he couldn't just jump off from the carriage, because they would easily notice the noise he would make.
'So I'm stuck in the most suspicious carriage with some weird statue lady and no answers. What a bloody day. Wait, statue lady?' Soren thought to himself while holding his head with his hands, when a crazy thought passed in his mind. He needed to check the lady's information, but he had never checked the information from someone of the same race, because he felt like it was a bit rude to look at someone's personal info, but desparate situations called for desparate measures and in this situation, he had to see if this was actually the woman from before.
[Homunculus: A living doll that can be controlled by anyone, as long as someone pours mana into it, but the previous user will notice the change of users upon the moment of the change happens.]
"So it's just a doll for decorations. Then the old lady just spoke through it, while she was never there in person." Soren said seriously while looking at the homunculus with scorn and anger. This wasn't the first time seeing the nasty attitude of the rich people, but he was furious by the fact that they didn't bother to talk at him, when they were the ones to force them in. His patience, at that moment had hit the limit and one moment, Soren slapped the homunculus at its face will of his power and the homunculus' head only turned slightly to the left and a red handprint appeared on the homunculus' right cheek.
At that moment, Soren was seriously debating about whether to enter the discuised big room to the right, or jump off the carriage from the left door. In the end, he decided to stick around until they reached Crystalia City's gates, since he remembered that this path could only take them to Crystalia City and he wanted to see if these guys could have the decency to entertain him a bit, or at all. He hoped for them to appear for a bit, so he could then curse them until his voice got tired, but if they didn't he would just find a training dummy and just proceed to destroy it completely.
At this moment, he decided to take his helmet so his head could cool off for a moment from all of the fury he was building up and then he noticed a book that was under the seat of the homunculus. The title of the book was called "The Prince's Nightlight" and the moment he read that title, he cringed a bit because he had a bit of experience with romance stories and the titles that they used were that kind of short and slightly cringy format. Just as he was going to put that book down, the door to the right opened up and a beautiful young girl with blue hair, green eyes and a shiny blue tail came out while looking a bit nervous and the two of them locked eyes with each other. In that moment, Soren's only thought was:
'Sh*t.'