"Here's your room!" Corissa said as she led Roko into the simple looking room that he would be staying in during his visit to Cordis.
"Yeah. Thanks." Roko said as he put down his backpack.
"My room is a bit higher up but please don't hesitate to come visit me if you ever need anything."
"Got it."
"Okay, what's wrong?"
"What?" Roko jolted as Corissa frowned at him.
"You've been acting weird ever since lunch and you won't even look me in the eye." Corissa bit her lip, "Was...my soup that bad?"
"No! No, the soup was great!" Roko cried, "It's just..."
Roko took a deep breath and sat down on the bed with a difficult look on his face.
"It's your dad."
"Father? What about him?"
Roko took another deep breath, trying to will himself to explain his awkward situation, "He...asked if I would marry you."
"HE DID WHAT?!" Corissa covered her face as even the tips of her ears began to grow red.
"I tried my best to explain the situation but he seemed pretty serious."
"Oh. Oh gods..." Corissa took rapid breaths to try and calm herself down, "I'm so, SO sorry."
"I-It's fine." Roko gulped, "I'm not too bothered."
"I swear he never usually does this." Corissa sighed as she finally calmed down enough to show her face again, "I didn't know he would do something like that."
"It's not your fault." Roko said reassuringly, "Do you know why they would do that though?"
"Hmmm..." Corissa looked towards Varis, "They don't really approve of me spending time with Varis."
"Why's that?"
"You remember how I told you that Varis became my knight after he beat all the best knights in Cordis without drawing his sword?" Corissa said, "That wasn't to try to test his skill, it was more to try to disprove his abilities. Varis was an adventurer when I found him and by then he had a pretty grim reputation as a black knight. My parents didn't like the idea of some random adventurer becoming my personal knight so they devised that test. Even though Varis handily beat them, they still don't like having him around me."
Corissa walked over to Varis and placed her hands on the sides of Varis' helmet, "You hear me mister? You need to speak up and defend yourself. I know you can."
Varis just nodded.
"You don't show your face, you don't say a word." Corissa sighed, "It's no wonder my parents don't trust you, you know? What am I going to do with you?"
"Oh. That's right." Roko opened his bookbag and rummaged inside, "I bought this for you two while I was in Galia."
"Ooo." Corissa took the red scarf from Roko, "This is pretty well made. I know!"
Corissa walked over to Varis and wrapped the scarf around his neck, "There we go! That breaks up the monotonous black armor quite nicely."
"And I got this for you." Roko handed Corissa the plush bat.
"Oh this is so cute." Corissa squealed as she hugged the bat close to her chest, "Very soft too. Kinda weird that it's a bat though."
"Would you believe it was the cutest thing they had in the shop?"
"That's a weird shop."
"Probably shouldn't tell your dad I gave you that."
"Why not? I know what you mean but I don't think it's that big a deal." Corissa smiled, "Plus it would be strange to say that you got Varis something but not me."
"Well if you don't think it'll cause any trouble." Roko sighed, "This marriage business is so weird. I have no idea how to handle this."
Corissa giggled, "Still, a married life with Roko..." Then quietly to herself, "...might not be that bad actually."
"What was that?"
"Nothing." Corissa cleared her throat, "In any case, you should take your time unpacking. Father and mother really want me to make dinner tonight so I'll be cooking again."
"I'm looking forward to it."
Corissa gave Roko a cute smile and squeezed the plush bat he had given her before leaving with Varis following suit, his red scarf fluttering in the wind. Left alone for the first time since coming to Cordis, Roko flopped onto the bed with a heavy sigh.
"First this spatial connection business, now the king wants me to get married to Corissa. Then there's that other job the headmaster lumped on me."
Roko turned up to stare at the ceiling, "That person sure doesn't make things easy."
"So how are you going to connect Memoria Auspice to Cordis?" Corissa asked as she followed Roko to the outskirts of the city's walls.
"Well as far as I can understand it, it's been mostly automated for me." Roko explained as he passed the front gate's soldiers who regarded him with suspicion.
"Really?" Corissa motioned to the guards to relax, "If anybody could do this then why'd they make it you?"
"Well the staff is busy reconsidering the school's defenses." Roko moved his hand across the smooth stones that made up Cordis' walls, "And every student has class to deal with. It would be in poor taste to force a knight to leave their charge just for a favor so as the person with the least ties and the least to gain from their classes, the job fell on me to fulfill your parent's requests."
"Sorry about that." Corissa frowned, "I know this is better than pressing charges against the school but creating a passage between here and the school must still troublesome huh? I wish I could say my parents were overreacting..."
"Not at all." Roko knelt down to study the wall closer, "I got to see your home and meet your parents after all. This trip is definitely worthwhile."
Corissa smiled, "So what are you looking for?"
"A good place to put the seal." Roko reached into his bookbag and removed a paper with a seal engraved on it, "It has to be somewhere out of the way and safe from any tampering, intentional or not."
"Should I be here for this?" Corissa asked.
"It should be fine. For the city gates, I can just place it on the walls."
Roko pushed aside some grass and stuck the seal to the stone wall. Once it had adhered to the wall, the seal glowed slightly and shifted slightly in design.
"That should do it." Roko said as he stood up, "I'll have to put one on the other side of the gate to properly mark the range of its effects but once that's done we can move onto testing."
"You sure know a lot about these seals."
"Well they told me how this would go before I came here of course." Roko said as he walked towards the other side of the gate, "But I did see these seals before."
"Really?"
"There was a destroyed one on the ground near the tower where you were captured. All the kidnapper had to do was destroy or remove it to cut their connection to the place. Though these ones should be harder to remove by force."
"I'm surprised you noticed."
"Just by happenstance." Roko replied as he stuck the second seal on the gate wall, "There. That should do it for now. All we can do now is wait for it to calibrate and connect to the school."
"Well that was fast." Corissa smiled, "It isn't even lunchtime yet. What are you going to do now?"
"I'm probably just going to explore the city." Roko said as he stood up again, "I might be out for the whole day."
"Want me to come with?" Corissa asked, "I can show you where all the good tourist spots are!"
"I'd rather find those out myself." Roko smiled, "You go spend some time with your family. That's why we're here after all."
"We're here so you can form that pathway." Corissa pouted, "Well, it's fine. I'll see you tonight then."
Roko waved as Corissa and Varis began to make their way back to the castle.
"Now then." Roko sighed.
Roko walked down a set of stairs into a small canal where the water running through the city passed through the walls of Cordis and rejoined the waters of a river outside. The entrance to further into the canal was barred off with only a locked gate to prevent anybody from entering the sewers. Taking a small dagger from his backpack, Roko cut apart the bolt keeping the gate shut and entered the darkness underneath the capital.
"Have you heard of Red Wind?"
"Should I have?"
"No, not at all." Zadkiel smiled, "Not if you haven't been keeping up with insurgency groups."
"You're telling me there's a rebellion going down in Corissa's home country?" Roko frowned.
"Not Physia, no." the headmaster laughed, "Perhaps the next country over."
"Then what does this have to do with anything?"
"Do you remember those strange tentacle creatures you encountered in the Paramnesia Wildwood?"
Roko's head perked up as Zadkiel said that. Zadkiel smiled as if she knew this would be his reaction.
"There are reports that monsters like that have been appearing underneath the city of Cordis." she continued, "And further reports suggests that this Red Wind group have infiltrated Cordis in order to try and use these monsters as tools for their rebellion."
"They think they can control those monsters?"
"Everybody thinks of themselves as a pioneer." Zadkiel chuckled, "Now, what do you think should be done about this?"
"...Report it to the king. It's his city they're trespassing on."
"Indeed it is. But the Red Wind has a bit of a trick up their sleeves. How simple do you think it would be to sneak in some scientists with armed escorts and then sneak out some monsters?"
"Not very."
"You don't mince words do you? Yes, the scientists would be simple enough but without weapons to help try and capture and contain those monsters, I don't think it would be very successful. Then again, slipping weapons into a major city is not easy you know."
"Then how do they do it?"
"They don't." Zadkiel replied with a wide smile. She didn't continue as she left the answer hanging in the air, waiting for Roko to make some sort of response. Roko sighed,
"They're being supplied from the inside."
"Correct!" Zadkiel clapped happily.
"I don't suppose there are weapon shops in Cordis?"
"Nope! Cordis doesn't particularly like the idea of war. That's why the majority of weapons are in the hands of their military."
"Which means there's a traitor in the military."
"Correct again! Naturally, there have been attempts to figure out who it is but it's been mainly unsuccessful. Of course the king himself wouldn't like to suspect his own leaders of treachery but what the real twist is that even if they are supplying them, it's not a crime against their country. Physia is not the target of Red Wind so supporting them is more an expression of political belief rather than treason."
"But they're still doing it secretly."
"Of course. It may not be treason but it's still a crime." Zadkiel nodded.
"Should I guess as what that favor is going to be?" Roko asked as he began to sweat nervously.
"Please go under the nose of Cordis' king and stop the insurgency's experiments on the unknown monsters."
"I knew it!" Roko cried as he held his head, "What exactly do you expect me to do?! I'm just one man with one useless spell! Why can't you make someone else more qualified do this?!"
"If it was anyone else, we wouldn't be able to send Corissa home."
"Aaaaaaaaa-"
"I swear to god, I'm going to get some sort of revenge against that headmaster." Roko muttered as he walked through the sewer, "She is insane to make me come here."
"Aren't you curious about those creatures?" Zadkiel asked.
"I am but that doesn't mean I want to fight an army." Roko muttered.
"Well, help me out with this favor and I'll think about telling you what those are."
"I'm being sent in to deal with an army and creatures that she refuses to tell me about." Roko grumbled, "Why did I agree to this?"
Roko stopped as the daylight from the entrance of the sewer began to grow dim. Putting down his backpack for a moment, he pulled out a lantern from inside and lit it, tying his new source of light to his hip. The sewer waters of Cordis rushed in the channel past him, a distinct unpleasant smell filled the air that took a few minutes for his body to get used to. Still grumbling a little, Roko continued down the straight waterway.