After finishing off the rest of the stragglers, both Leona and Krieg returned with them to their homestead. But unlike the ones that actively took part in the battle, neither of the two were exactly cheerful.
"Another successful battle!" Ren raised his glass mug above his head. "Cheers!"
"Cheers!"
It was already night when everyone sat by the round table as they commemorated yet another victory against the death angel menace.
It was nothing short of a miracle in Leona's eyes. To be able to defeat so many in a day was something straight out of legends.
'Will I really reach their level?' She stared at the food in front of her as her mind wandered. 'To defeat those monstrosities by the hundreds… at first I thought it was humanly impossible but this…' She looked around everyone raising their mugs, drinking, eating, being merrily, it was almost as if a disaster didn't occur. 'This is beyond common sense.'
She took a deep breath to calm herself down.
'If what Robert said is true and I am indeed able to reach those lofty heights then… what is really holding me back from going to Arcadia? Alexander might as well be a speck of dust against people of this standard.'
She looked around once more. Tomoe, the gentle and kind oni maid was capable of much more with a battle axe in her hands. Yuna, despite being young and inexperienced in the arts of teaching—she could still wreck havoc amongst her enemies with her spells. Ren, the somewhat solitary young man, seemed just like 'another unfortunate soul' that happened to be caught by war and yet he too was indispensable for this team.
She felt like she was amongst heroes and also one bereft of right to sit at that table.
"Hey, you'll stare a hole in them." Robert's voice quickly snapped her out of it. "What's wrong? Is the fight still hanging on your mind?"
He had just finished eating and was currently enjoying a glass of wine beside the tactician.
"No, it's nothing like that. I'm just wondering why am I training so hard to become like them if those I'll face in Arcadia are nothing compared to this."
Robert settled his half empty glass on the table and leaned back on his seat.
"Wouldn't it make sense to prepare for the worst?"
"Yes, but… even so… a singular death angel can prove more than enough to deal with an army of soldiers. But them? They obliterated hundreds of those things."
"I think you are misunderstanding something. It is true that death angels are quite powerful in comparison to any other common beast you'd find in the wilds, but those they faced were younglings. The ones you have faced in Arcadia were adult ones."
"Huh?"
"How do you think some of them manage to cross the ocean to another continent? Those are the select few that are truly strong amongst their peers." He crossed his arms and glanced up to the ceiling. "Needless to say, the progenitor is still out there somewhere in the Elysian Fields. That one is the one you need to be afraid of."
"The death angel queen?"
"Yes. I know not its purpose or how it looks, but apparently Xenovia knows."
'That name again.'
She thought and for a second there was a tight feeling inside her chest as she asked.
"Who is she exactly? You told me she wanted you to train me, but it doesn't make sense. I never met or heard of her before."
"You wouldn't have. Because she isn't from this timeline, remember?"
"But then this would imply she knows me from this other timeline you speak of."
He sighed whilst scratching his head.
"I can't just divulge what I know. If my words change the outcome of this timeline, what of it then? Would you trample on someone's wishes to save the entire world from doom just for self fulfillment?"
"Her timeline and this timeline are two different things." Despite her earlier disheartened attitude she had a certain fire in her eyes. "It is arrogance to think one person can decide the fate of a world."
He continued to silently stare at her. Even amongst the cheers and conversations—neither of them seemed to budge.
"Master." Tomoe approached Robert with a plate of neatly cut cheese. "I brought you the…"
The oni maid stood silent once she realized both of them were glaring daggers at each other. Robert then leaned slightly forward and sighed.
"You are not going to let this go, are you?"
"Not until you give me a reasonable answer."
"Fine then, you will have a compromise." He stood up and raised his right hand before announcing. "I have business to attend to. Feel free to eat, drink or do whatever it is that you want." He then turned to Leona. "Come. I'll show you."
"Where t-"
She didn't even finish her sentence and with the snap of his fingers the whole world seemed to shift and warp beyond recognition until she found herself in a familiar laboratory. Upon looking behind her, she noticed once again the three women suspended in the air as if lost in time.
"Here we are."
"Why have we come here?"
"To show you."
He reached for the woman in the middle and grabbed her arm before gently pulling her out of the area the runes were influencing which made her fall limp in his arms. Xenovia's blonde hair brushed against his chest as he adjusted her between his arms.
"What are you doing…?"
"Clean the table would you?" He pointed to the marble table with his chin. "Just be careful with the needles, lest you prick yourself."
She hurriedly approached it and carefully removed the objects that were on top of it to a secondary smaller table below it. In the meantime, Robert gently placed the sleeping woman sitting on the edge of the table before slowly lowering her head against it so she would lay flat on her back.
"Here, give me your hand."
She did as instructed as he stepped aside and brought Leona closer to the woman. He then slowly placed Leona's hand on top of Xenovia's right palm. At first there was a bit of hesitance, but once her fingers touched her skin, that is when she felt strangely at peace.
'She's… warm…'
"I need you to hold her hand tightly."
His voice made her snap out of the brief trance.
"Uh… okay…"
Upon grabbing her hand she noticed it was full of calluses. The rough skin was hardly befit of a princess but there was a certain heartwarming feeling about it as it reminded her of both her father's and Krieg's hands.
"Now, close your eyes and focus." He instructed. "Imagine as if you were entering your inner world."
She exhaled slowly before closing her eyes. There was a lingering sensation of mana coursing through her body and as her own mind focused on said sensation—her consciousness was pulled into it like a fish being hooked out of the water.
The violent sensation soon diminished as she opened her eyes. Before her was an open field with a veritable mountain of corpses. Humans, demons, elves, dwarves, demi-humans, angels, death angels, beasts, demi-beasts, just about every kind of sentient being made part of the macabre stage. The verdant plains were painted crimson—different shades of blue and purple pooled amidst the craters formed by countless battles. The earth was so steeped with blood it couldn't soak any more of it.
'What is going on…?!'
There was desperation overcoming her senses but even with such a terrible sight in front of her, she couldn't 'feel' herself. She tried to move her body but despite her best attempts nothing could be done as she kept walking amongst the piles of dead bodies as if her body wasn't her own.
"Their perversion knows no bounds…" An unknown female voice came from her own mouth. She then realized she was in fact inside someone else's body. "Master, what shall we do?"
She turned around and a man wearing a similar military garb with gray camouflage patterns to her approached with a hobbling right leg. He was Robert's splitting image, if not for the fact that he remained with his eyes closed all the time.
"We press on. Akrapocalis shouldn't be too far from here."
"Rest in peace, comrades."
She stood up and adjusted the sling of her weapon. On her back there was a frostburnt silver longsword in a simple leather sheath while her left hand held a double edged battle axe that seemed like an executioner's weapon since both blades had quite a large surface area.
Robert kept walking with his bad leg with the aid of a crooked stick. He didn't seem to be carrying weapons, but knowing him, Leona was sure he would just use magic just like the Robert she knew.
As they kept going, the person continued at a slightly faster pace than the sage which then prompted herself to turn around and ask.
"Are you sure you don't want to use your teleportation magic? Even if we do end up in the middle of a battlefield, I'm certain I can deal with whatever comes our way."
"And risk getting killed? No, we are better off walking."
"It takes a few days to reach Akrapocalis by foot. With your bad leg I wager we'll take a week."
"A week is nothing after all we went through."
"Master, with all due respect. I fail to see how spending another week pointlessly walking will be beneficial to us."
"You don't understand. The moment I use my magic, those things will come for us. They no longer hesitate in choosing their prey. And the more we kill, more will come."
"Hah! Let them come." She laughed as she slinged the battle axe against her shoulder. "I will let them have a taste of my blade."
"You chase death all too eagerly, Xenovia."
"What can I do? I think I inherited it from her."
"She too chose the wrong path. Like many of us did." He stumbled forward but she held him just in time before he could land face-first into the blood soaked mud. "Thank you."
"Since we'll be taking our time, shouldn't we get some rest then?"
"...I suppose so."
They spent most of the time trudging through the battlefield before they could find a place to rest amidst a few trees.