"..."
"i guess he did said Nya..gotta say doesn't match his demeanor"
"i was cute tough"
"hm.. it was"
"..."
"why you are so quiet Eda?"
"im just s-suprised, that's a-all"
'why is she nervous?'
Lena changed her face foward, and stared at Albert who seemd to be thinking about something
"what should we do now?"
"hm... if not mutch Lena, i'd like to sleep a little bit. i have not slepped since 2 days ago, im quite at my limit at the moment"
"oh..i see.. i'll leave then.."
"wait a minute"
Albert stood up and walked to the desk, and took a card from it
"can you give me your hand for a second?"
"..Sure"
Albert placed the card on top of Lena's right palm, the card glowed and left a faint mark on her hand
"with this you can freely enter the room, while i..sleep.."
Albert weakly started to lay on the bed, and pull the blanked on him
"will you be ok with people watching you? wont they attack you while you sleep?"
"i..can..detec-t...malice..slee..ping.."
"ah ok, have a good sleep"
"be safe.."
he started to snort
"he seemed to be very tired"
"i'll be with you Lena, but i'll be invisible, just in case anything happens, im still a bit scared of this place"
Eda started to go invisible again
'he said he can detect malice even while sleeping, is probably ok to leave him here, i should walk around the city again, get familiar with the streets and letters, since its been more then 10 hous that im in this dream, i might as well treat it as reality, put in practice what my father have taught me'
*..Before any operation, our field team does a scout in the area, we gotta know everything, not only the location of the operation, but everything else around it..*
"i guess i'll scout for now"
Lena walked to the door and left, in the same elevator Niko has left early
she left the hotel, she started to go toward the big tower again, this time, she stayed in the main street, very..very crowded street, many people on the sides selling food, toys, something that looked to be magical scrolls,books and and weapons
'they do sell anything, i guess'
"nonsense!"
'hm..what is this'
there was a tall man, with red hair yelling at a seller, who seemed to be selling fruits
"how can you, sell a simple apple for 1 whole gold coin?"
"hey kid, this is the price, if you dont have money move on!"
the man said while moving his hand, as if for the man to go away
"thats not the matter here! 1 apple is 20 silver coins, is a decrete made by the king Valor, are you trying to break the economy of the kingdom?"
"what are you talking about kid, this apples are different, cant you see they are bigger then normal, they were growth with special enchants, of course they have a higher price! get out of here"
"special enchants? should i test them?"
the man took 1 apple with his right hand from the little shelf, and held in front of the man
"what ever you wanna do, you gotta pay first kid!"
"sure!"
the man tooked a gold coin from his back pocked with his left hand, and trowed at the man
as the man catched the coin, the apple glowed pink and started to show symbols, 3 to be precise, V shaped symbol that looked like wings, a P that lookek like a 9 and a F that looked like a 3, the man then said
"as you can see, they have nothing special on them! lower the price of i'll call the guards on you"
"tsc.. you were a farmer? alright kid you won!"
the man took 1 large silver coin, that was almost the size of a gold coin, and 2 smaller ones and handed to the man
"take and leave, just dont talk to anyone ok"
the man took the coins and smiled
"as long you dont do nothing wrong you dont need to fear anything"
"get out now"
the man started to walk down the street, Lena was watching him go
"what did he just did? did he showed what was on the apples? magic here is so confusing"
"why dont you ask him?"
'hm..did she just talked in my head'
"i'll talk to you this way, it'll be safer"
'she can use telepathy? wow'
"will he talk?"
"he seemed nice, since he mentioned the human law, i guess he's a man of honour"
'honour? never seen such thing in this..world yet'
"let's try!"
Lena rushed towards the man, this man looked to be close to 20 years old, was wearing a white pants and dark blue social shirt with gold lines on it, they were forming small lion head on the back, the man had a dark gold pin holding his big red hair, his blue eyes had a calm yet mistery feel, as if he was of great importance, Lena aproached him and said
"..hm excuse me sir?"
he turned his head towards her and asked
"can i help you?"
"ah yes, im sorry, im curious of what you did with that apple just now?"
"hm..oh you saw that..i see"
"i never saw something, like that"
"oh you see, thats a enchant used by farmers, to check the amout of grow enchants on the fruits and vegetables, to not overgrow it, because if you do the taste is not good, so it must be patiently checked multiple times i just showed him that the apple had the proper amout of enchants, nothing 'special' as he mentioned"
"i see"
the man lowered his eyes and noticed the sword on her waist
"are perhaps a swordsman?"
"im learning yet"
"i see, my name is.. K-kas...Kas, its a pleasure to meet you"
"oh, the pleasure is all my Sir Kas, im Lena"
"nice to meet you Lady Lena, at your age walking in the path of the sword, it is a honour, you know me too, started at the path of sword at a very young age"
"oh are you a swordsman too?"
"oh i see, this is why he has such a strong energy, his body is really firm too, like the flame knight"
Lena looked at his waist but she did not saw any sword, he noticed she looking for it and said with a short laugh
"the sword might atract some uncessary attention, so i keep it away, dont worry"
"forgive me, i just have not met any other swordsman till today"
"oh is that so? so you dont have a master?"
"im afraid not, but i did trained a lot"
"i see"
his eyes glowed for a sec
'oh no, he has that thing Albert has, he can know when im lying'
"Sir may i ask you something?"
"of course, i'll try my best to answer, miss"
Lena approached him a little bit and asked in a low voice
"are you a knight?"
"hm.. im not"
"he answered very fast, he doesnt seem to be one"
'apparently not'
"im curious now, what made you think i'am a knight?"
"i dont know, you look.. how can i put, serious as if you were a guard of guardian"
Kas let out some cough, as he tried to eat the apple
"do i look serious? sorry.. im not a knight nor a guard, and may gods listen to you that i can be a guardian, is one of my dreams"
'he seems to be hiding something'
"watch out Lena, there are some guys coming here"
"hey hey, what do we have here? hey red hair, you look rich as fuck"
"hey dude, how about you give us some coins huh? no body needs to get hurt"
the second man speaking hard gloves with lightning on it, the first man had something that looked like a yo-yo but it had a ominous darkness on it
"i see, indeed i am rich, but unfortunally i feel like money should not resolve the issue, dont you agree miss Lena?"
Lena started to remove her sword from the scabbard slowly and replied
"i doesn't look like it, Sir Kas"
"but we dont need to kill them too"
Kas said this because he could see in Lena's eyes that were full of bloodlust
"they only are some punks who prey on weakers, they need punishment, not death"
Lena looked at Kas who seemed to be saying that as if she wanted to kill them
she wanted though, she learned to strike first from the first time she was attacked
"A swordsman, should not have too many emotions while fighting, you should view yourself as a sword, steady and sharp"
'steady and sharp'
"there is a guy in the back of the ally, i think is the guy with the darkness, he's watching you"
'steady and sharp'
Lena focused in what she heart, and tried to remain calm, Kas looked at her and smiled
"yes this way, now we can take care of them"
"yes, sir"
Lena said as she placed her sword back in the scabbard
"oh you wanna go you shit heads"
"the girl has a sword, is she a swordsman?"
"there's no way she is one, just grab her, we can steal the sword and sell it later"
"he he"
Lena kicked off the ground and ran toward the guy with the lighting gloves, he tried to puch her, but she could feel where his lighting was aiming, and dodged easily, at the same time Kas stared at the guy with the yo-yo and calmly started to walk toward him
the guy with the gloves, jumped back as Lena dodged his fist and punched the ground, making a curent of eletricity flow trought the ground aimed at her, she did a small jump as she could feel the Enchants being cast in the glove aimed at the ground and from the ground aimed at her at, she then moved very fast and did a small kick in the glove guy's chin making him dazy, she did another small jump to the right side of him and pushed him backwards, making him fall. she then looked at Kas, and could see him dodge one of the attacks from the Yo-yo very fast, and slaped the guy's face, as the guy jumped backwards and was about to lauch a counter attack he felt his legs get numb, he looked to his trembled legs and heard Kas voice at this moment
"have you seen someone in a fight do something uncessary? never understimate an attack even if is a slap"
"t-this..is..s-leep en..cha..nt"
the yoyo guy fainted
"see miss Lena, no need to kill them"
"i understand sir Kas, it was very educative, thank you"
Kas made a '8' with his fingers in the air, as the fingers left a trail of white light in the air a rope that looked to be made of smoke but more bright, and started to tied up the 2 mans that attacked them
"i'll take these two to the guard station, i must leave for now miss Lena, thank you for your help, and sorry for this trouble"
"there's no need for you to apologize for these two"
"i believe i do. if wans't for me they would not have attacked someone holding a sword such as you, in part, it was my fault"
he said that with a faint yet noticeable sad face
"the guy in the dark still staring at you, Lena"
"at least none of us are hurt, that's what matters"
Kas looked at her with a kind smile
"you are very kind miss Lena"
he held the smoke-ish rope, at this moment the rope levitated and the tied man too stared to levitate, Kas pulled them and said
"it was good to meet you miss Lena, i must leave for now, may we meet again in the future"
"yes may we meet again"
Lena waved at him and turned back into the way she was heading, and started to walk, she could not feel the man in the dark in fact she noticed how she could not feel irregularities at all, but she trusted Eda's comments
"he is dashing trough the darkness to follow us, it looks so scary"
'dashing trough the darkness? what does that means?'
"Can they do that? he can move trought shadows, Lena, he's moving from one shadow to the other, its so creepy"
Lena stayed calm despite, the freaked voice of Eda in her head
after walking for almost 40 minutes, she reached a familiar view, it was the same as when the guys attacked her, but this time, she was at the other side of the 'ring' of the first level of the city, she entered trought the north gate, right now, she was close to the south gate.
she looked down, she couls see the levels bellow, each one of them were smaller then the previous ring, there were 6 levels until the castle and as before, there were soldiers riding wyverns flying around the castle, and again, there was strange blue sparks floating from the castle walls.
"he is in the alley right next you, Lena"
"So..will you introduce yourself, or should i make the first move?"
"..."
Lena stared at the alley in her right side, altough there wasn't too much light in this part of the city, the alley was quite dark, to the point where a box halfway in the alley could only be seen if you were very close to it
"..."
"..."
"..."
"no answer? you do wanna die it seem"
"i could not believe you were talking to me, honestly"
the man in the dark walked out of the alley, and laid his back on the wall on the alley entrance
"what could be the reason you were following a girl like me"
the mand stared carefully at Lena, who had her hand on the scabbard and had a sharp yet calm gaze on her face
"You really are a swordsman, you have the eyes of one at least, as if if i move you'll cut my head off. why am i following you, you ask? you see.. the sword you have, belonged to my friend.
did you killed him?"
the guy with the darkness on him, who had his arms crossed as he had his back touching the alley entrance, had a cold gaze on his face
"Lena, i think he's trying to call someone, there is a wierd signal coming out of him"
'i know! i can sense it'
there was a wierd feeling coming out of the man in front of her, as if it was sending information elsewhere
"yes i did, he attacked me first"
as she said this, Lena could feel enchants being throwed from within the dark alley, it was the small darts again, wich she carefully blocked with the sword, and placed the sword back on the scabbard again
"i guess you really wanna die too"
"amazing how a child like you has such incredible senses, i can understand how he died to you, but you need to beware of you surrounds kid, not everything is what it looks"
"Lena, there are 6 people coming out of the shadows, they are all holding crossbows aimed at you"
Lena slowly started to remove her sword out of the scabbard and said
"one or seven of you, doesn't matter, all that will remain are you guys heads on the ground"
"you.."
The man stared at her, Lena had a cold yet calm gaze on her face
'this bitch.. she's probably strong as hell, i've might have done a mistake'
"he's sending the signal again"
'i hope this bluff pays off, im not confident i can take all seven of them'
"they're leaving Lena, just the guy in front of you remain"
"your friends are gone, how about you?"
"you are very interesting, i'll leave for now, dont want to find out if you trully are strong as you look"
"very wise"
the man entered the alley, and started to get immersed in darkness and disappeared
"indeed very wise, he left Lena, i was so scared for you"
'i should go back to Albert for now, just in case, there was seven of them now. why is aways the deeper i get in the city the more they appear'
"i'll return to Albert for now"
"i see, its better this way"
They returned to the hotel, more specific, to his room. they entered the room after about 2 hours out, of course he was still sleeping, Lena sitted on the chair and closed her eyes in hope she too, could sleep and perheaps wake up. for her surprise, or not, that's not what happend.