I walked through the halls of Cloven Academy, slowly making my way towards the office Jeanne, Anise's mother, usually stayed in.
Reaching the place, I knocked on the door and after waiting there for around five seconds, the door opened and I was greeted by Anise's surprised face.
"Are you already up? I thought it would take you longer."
"Are you not happy to see me?" I asked jokingly.
Anise pouted before smiling and stealing my lips for a quick kiss. After breaking our kiss, she asked:
"I'm happy that you woke up. I was getting bored of only fooling around here while reading books. How did it go? Did you have any problem with your soul evolution?"
My mind immediately went to the dream I had, or maybe not a dream… I didn't really have an idea how to describe it, but I didn't tell her about it since not even I knew how to explain it myself. Shaking my head, I said: "No, it went well. My soul is now at tier two. Where is your mom?"
"Oh, you're not going to believe this. After we announced that we're going to leave this world for yours, she and dad started seeing each other again. Kind off."
"Wait, are you telling me she's not here because she's on a date with your father?" I asked with an amazed expression.
"Yeah. They've been seeing each other more often and I think they might be even spending some nights together since I went to look for her one night in her room and she was not there."
I nodded and replied: "I'm happy for them."
"Me too." Replied Anise with a smile before asking: "Now that you are up, are you going to go north? If so, can you please wait for me to go and let my parents know? I want to go with you and increase my level as well. All this sitting around reading books is getting boring."
"No problem. Let's go." I said as I grabbed Anise's hand and teleported both of us in the guild leader's office at the adventurer's guild in the city, a decision I ended up regretting as soon as we appeared in the room.
When we appeared inside the guild leader's office, Ian was sitting on the chair behind the desk with Jeanne on top of him, kissing him passionately. Anise blushed as soon as she set her eyes on the scene and turned around to hide her red face in my chest.
Jeanne and Ian of course felt us teleporting there as soon as we appeared and Jeanne sat up as soon as possible and arranged her messed up hair and robes, but it was too late. We already ended up seeing more than we bargained for.
Ian was the first one to speak after fixing his clothes and, clearing his throat to push away the awkwardness, he said: "Ethan, I'm glad you finally woke up. Anise wouldn't tell us what happened and we were quite worried about you."
'I can see that!!' I thought to myself, but kept a straight face and answered: "I'm sorry for worrying you. It was nothing bad and I was just increasing the tier of my soul."
Jeanne joined in the conversation as she asked: "Increasing your soul tier? What is that?".
I didn't know if her interested expression was genuine or she was just happy to change the topic away from the embarrassing scene we stumbled upon, but I still answered: "It's quite difficult to explain, but it was something I had to do if I ever wanted to have a chance in facing the demons."
"I see…" she replied and took a long pause before Ian continued: "And why are you here?"
As Ian asked his question, Anise peeked from my chest and said: "We.. We wanted to let you know that we're planning on going north to increase our level."
Anise's small stutter and her still blushing face made the atmosphere a little awkward once again.
"Ahem.. All right, but be careful not to get hurt." Said Ian right away at which Jeanne nodded as well.
"We're going now." Said Anise from my chest before casting a teleportation spell and bringing us back to Jeanne's office. Once there, she took a step back from me and covered her red face as she said: "ohhhhh that was so embarrassing, what were they thinking doing that in the office. If we got there a couple minutes later…. Ahhhhhh"
I chuckled at her reaction and said: "Well, since their levels are quite high, they are basically still young. Having sex it's completely normal."
"Yes, but not in dad's office at the guild… what if someone else walked in on them… let's not talk about that again. I want that image out of my head." Replied Anise in an exaggerated manner."… Let's go north. Anna must for sure be worried."
"Are you sure you don't want to speak to your parents a bit more? You barely spoke a few words to each other."
"No, I can use spatial magic as well and can come here if need be. I just wanted to let them know because they will get worried if I just disappeared."
Nodding, I grabbed her hand and teleported both of us to the Blessed Battalion's entrance. Since we couldn't teleport directly inside without Anise carrying a bracelet, this was the best choice.
After waiting for a while, Brenn appeared in front of us and looked at Anise for a moment before asking: "Hi, Ethan. Anna is already waiting for you inside."
"Hi, Brenn. Do you have another bracelet to give to Anise as well?"
He nodded and asked: "Sure, but can you please tell me who she is? Even if Anna told me to give you special treatment, I can't just hand over a key to the Battalion without even knowing the person's identity."
"She's Anise Cloven, a wizard of the Cloven family. She's also my girlfriend and will join us in the war against the demons."
As expected, Brenn didn't react in any way at the news of me having two girlfriends and just handed her a bracelet as well. After that, we said our goodbyes to him and teleported straight in the Battalion leader's house.
Since we teleported in the dining room and Anna was not here, we walked up the stairs and soon reached her office. After knocking gently on the door, the door opened and a tired but excited Anna jumped into my arms.
"I missed you so much." She said as she buried herself in my arms. After a few seconds, we separated and she gave Anise another hug before saying: "Sister Anise. It's good to see you too."
Anise smiled in reply and all three of us stepped inside the office. After a casual conversation and Anna making sure I was alright, her face got serious as she said: "Do you two plan on leveling up?"
Seeing both of us nod, she pulled a map with all kind of markings on it and saying: "This is the demon's movement as reported back by our spies. If you want to increase your level fast, I would recommend you start hunting demon patrols around the major cities."
She pointed three major cities on the map, all surrounded by red X's and continued: "The demons around the cities and plenty and quite strong, making leveling up a lot easier. The problem is the proximity to the city itself and the speed at which reinforcements arrive. If you don't kill your target and retreat fast enough, there's a high chance you'll be swarmed by other demons from inside the city, maybe even alerting the general inside."
We looked carefully at each city on the map and I asked: "Which one of the demon generals is the weakest?"
Anna sighed and said: "Up until we lost our former leader, we believed Vannoth to be the weakest, but since then, we revised our rankings and if the others are not hiding their strength as well, Azrin should be the weakest, followed by Mezienne and then Gol'gan. We're still not sure where to rank Vannoth yet."
"I see. Which city is under Azrin's control?"
Anna pointed towards one of the cities and said: "That would be Kazim city. This is also the best place to hunt demons since Azrin is responsible for the management of all the demons on the northern continent."
I nodded and said: "Then I guess we'll start from there." Turning towards Anise, I asked: "Is that fine with you?"
She nodded and replied: "Whatever you want. I don't have any preference."
Nodding in response, I turned towards Anna and asked: "Won't you join us as well?"
Anna sighed and said in a hopeless tone: "I can't. I have too much to deal with here, but I'll make sure to stop sending hunting parties to Kazim City and increase the amount of parties going to the other cities. Like this, maybe I can distract some of their attention and let you hunt more easily. Uhmmm.. Will you come and visit me once in a while?"
"I will." I wished I could spend more time with her and Anise, but if the demons have increased their devouring speed, I had no choice but to rush and increase my level as soon as possible. With an apologetic look, I said: "I'm sorry I'm not able to spend more time with you. The demon's threat is increasing now that the world lost it's will and I need to increase my level as soon as possible."
"It's all right, I understand. I also want Mezienne dead as soon as possible."
After sharing a passionate kiss with Anna, I grabbed Anise's hand and was about to teleport outside before she stopped me and said: "Wait a moment. Ethan, I think we should check on Oliver, Lysa and Velor. They might want to join us as well."
I paused and considered everything for a moment before nodding. Having them hunt with us will for sure increase our speed and their strength was nothing to laugh at.
"Anna, we're leaving now. I love you."
She nodded and said: "Go. I love you too." She tried to look strong, but I could see the corner of her eyes were already reddening slightly. Sighing, I closed my eyes and teleported Anise and me just outside the Capital.
Once we arrived there, Anise wiped the sweat that formed on my forehead and asked: "Are you all right?"
"Yes, but teleporting so often is draining my mana quite a lot."
"Want to take a small nap to recover it? I'll look over you while you sleep."
I shook my head as I manifested my staff and converted half of my spirit into mana. Once I was almost full, I said: "I'm okay now, let's go."
We walked on the road and headed towards the capital's entrance. We were a bit surprised that on the way we didn't encounter a single person walking towards the Capital or away from it.
"Something must have happened." Said Anise.
I nodded and we increased our walking speed. Once we reached the main gate, one of the guards stopped us and said: "We're sorry, but the Capital is under lockdown for now and no one is allowed to enter or leave."
We looked at each other before Anise asked: "Did anything happen? It was not like this a week ago."
The guard nodded and said: "The Imperial Wizard had betrayed the Empire and teleported assassins inside to kill the Emperor. Luckily, the second princess was nearby and managed to repel the attackers, but the assassin's weapons were coated with an unknown poison and he's unconscious at the moment. Until we manage to catch the assassins that are still hiding inside the city, no one is allowed to enter of exit the Capital."
The situation was a lot worse than we expected and after thanking the guard, I grabbed Anise's hand and pulled her away.
"Ethan, what are we going to do? We must help Lysa and Velor."
I nodded and replied: "We'll try, but we must find out what happened first."
"How are we going to do that?"
"I say we first speak with someone who might have an idea about what is really going on. I don't think Isabella will plot to attack the Emperor." As my words ended, I looked back to check we were far enough from the guards before teleporting both of us to the small restaurant Iris was working at, but to my dismay, the place seemed to be closed.
"At least we've arrived inside the Capital. Let's see what the situation is like." I said as we both walked towards the restaurant's exit. Opening the door slightly, we peeked outside and were surprised to only see guards patrolling around and no other people in sight.
"They must have closed the streets as well. We can't be seen walking outside or they'll capture us for sure."
I nodded and closed the door before taking a seat at a table to think about what we could do next. After passing ideas back and forth with Anise, we settled on waiting for the night to come before I try to sneak inside the emperor's courtyard using my invisibility spell while Anise waits for me here.
As there were around three or so more hours until sundown, I laid down on one of the benches inside the restaurant and prepared to go to sleep to recover my mana and spirit.
"Since I didn't use any of my mana, I'll stay guard and wake you up if anyone comes near the restaurant."
I nodded in agreement and closed my eyes. This was going to be another long night…