"Raine! Are you sure you wanna go? Please don't!"
Alice runs after me as I am pulling my suitcase. While she's speeding down the stairs, she accidentally trips on a step and is sent flying.
Noticing her falling, I instantly accelerate my speed while temporarily pausing to catch her before she touches the ground. Time unfreezes, and I find myself standing next to my bag with Alice in a princess carry.
Huh, I'm holding a princess in a princess carry.
I set her on the ground and, after a moment, she calms down, "I'm sorry, Raine."
"It's fine, my magic power is pretty high, you know."
She nods and the rest of the family, with the exception of mother and father, descend to see me off. At the same time, both of the twins bomb-rush me. Due to my poor endurance, it's unbearably painful for them both to hug me tightly.
Stella then tenderly encircles us, and Alice arrives and gives me a hug from my back. If not for the fact that I was currently being choked by all of these people pressing against me, this would be a happy family occasion.
Unable to endure the pain any longer, I teleport about a meter away.
"Geez you guys," I say while gasping for air, "a simple goodbye wouldn't do?"
"Well, it was the twin's idea to smother you. I just joined in." Stella speaks in a playful tone.
I sigh deeply. These guys…
"By the way," Stella says one last time, "your mother and father told me to give you their best regards."
I nod at her words. They must be incredibly busy dealing with the incidents after all.
Cassie tosses me a golden necklace, "Here. Casey and I stood awake all night using palace gold to make this for you!"
After catching it, I wrap it around my neck. Even though I'm not quite sure what the facility's jewelry policy is, I'm confident that this will probably be acceptable.
I give Cassie a sincere thank you before I unlock the castle door.
A little magic powered carriage being driven by one man was waiting outside the huge gate separating the front yard from the outside.
As I start to roll my luggage toward the front gate, I wave to my family. I open the massive metal gate using light magic and exit.
The carriage had an empty interior that could hold roughly four passengers when I opened the door. I enter and place my bag on the floor, closing the door behind me. The man opens the peephole and speaks as I sit down on one of the seats.
"We're close to another one of the candidates, so you'll be sharing this space with one other person."
"Alright." I nod and the man shut the peephole and the carriage started moving
We should be heading to Sylvia's home, perhaps I should place my suitcase in a pocket dimension.
Over my years of studying with Cassie, I developed the ability to open a hole in space and place things within, not that much unlike a world hole. It took a lot of trial and error, plus a lot of lost clothes, but I had finally succeeded in creating one.
About five minutes after the carriage stops, a silver-haired girl enters wearing a white skirt, stockings, and a blue button-down shirt. She has light complexion, yet there were dark rings around her eyes. She has an expressionless face and was only carrying a small bag.
She took a glance at me, who was wearing my coat geas and the white turtleneck. I was also wearing my white combat prototype boots and white jeans. If there was an ambush, I was prepared for it.
"You seem quite prepared." She remarks.
"I'd say the opposite for you," I look at her bag with my 'Eye of Absolute Certainty', "but that wouldn't exactly be true."
She chuckles softly and, before she could sit down, the carriage begins to move, causing her to fall over and land on me.
Our eyes meet as she picks herself back up and sits down beside me.
It becomes dead silent.
I get bored, so I decide to browse through 'War God's Perfect Arsenal' to look at different weapons. The inventory had a considerable variety of formidable special weapons, but the strongest ones were kept behind a magic power exchange mechanism.
I could purchase a powerful weapon if I really wanted to, but it would cost a huge amount of mana that I could not afford to lose.
Sylvia watches me as I pull a pure black curved dagger with a glowing purple blade from the inventory, however, to her it appeared to her that I had created the object out of nothing.
She looks over at me and speaks with a neutral tone, "Is that magic, or is it a skill?"
"It's a skill," I reply calmly.
"I see," She tilts her head slightly, "is it a powerful one?"
I looked at the knife's unique enchantment and nodded. It was similar to another story I've read in that it could transfer the thrower to wherever it landed. It wasn't really beneficial to me, so I put it back in the inventory after deciding that.
I was still looking through the inventory window when I spotted a search bar at the top. This is something I've never seen before.
When was the skill last updated?
I tap the search bar and immediately enter the word 'gun'. Before I know it, pictures of various weapons were in front of me. firearms, explosives, and even rifles. I hurriedly shut the window, trying not to tempt myself to grab something.
The entire time, Sylvia is simply staring at me with an unreadable expression. The way she is looking at me is kind of cute… in a way.
I turn to face her and look intently into her icy, silvery eyes, which had dark rings encircling them from below.
Her face was beautiful, as one could expect from the Duke's daughter. However, there was a hazy sensation of need–a frantic longing for care and attention–in her eyes. A longing I am all too familiar with.
"Would you like a weapon?" I ask playfully.
"I would not mind." She replies bluntly.
"Mhmm," I nodded as I opened the window, "Could you please give me a description of your desired weapon."
She briefly looked up in thought before replying, "A compact, concealable weapon that I could employ in close combat would be ideal. And if necessary, I'd like to have the ability to flee quickly."
I smile and take out the knife that I had just put away. I have my hand and the blade becomes dyed white.
I flip the dagger around and hand it to her. She takes hold of the handle and inspects the knife, which had three ridges that were curved and ideal for cutting an adversary.
"When you throw it, you're able to teleport to its location."
"Really?" Her eyes widen at my explanation. She appears to be in genuine shock, "How were you able to create such a powerful weapon?"
"It's not that powerful. It's only as sharp as the average sword, and it gives you the ability to teleport to it. That's not much."
She shook her head, "It may not be much to you, but universe magic is impossible to learn for people born without it. So even teleporting like this is amazing..."
Is that so? Have I recently become too accustomed to teleportation? I was aware of its strength, but did others think so highly of it?
The moment I hand her the knife, she opens her pouch and puts the dagger inside. She shuts it firmly and makes a serious face as she turns to me.
"You shouldn't just go around and hand these to whoever. Did you give these to anybody else?"
I shook my head, "Only members of the royal family."
She sighs in relief, "That's good. You would become a target for many criminal organizations if word of this leaked. They would be desperate to possess someone who could effectively mass produce geas'.."
Oh, she's right. For this reason, I had intended to distribute these only to a select group of people. I just felt compelled to offer her one. I'm not sure why I handed Sylvia the knife in the first place, but I'm glad I did.
She glares at me, her concern for my well-being seeming genuine. That makes me happy for some reason.
The remainder of the ride is spent in silence.
We occasionally catch each other's glances, but when we do, we turn our heads away in embarrassment. I would look through my weapon inventory when it is open, or I would examine the weaponry I currently have equipped.
After almost an hour, Sylvia dozes off, her head falling on my arm.
"Nya-" I hurriedly placed my left hand over my mouth before I could let out a yelp.
I turn to my side and look down at the sleeping Sylvia. Her hands were crossed, and she was leaning her head against my shoulder. Her expression shows that she was relieved from her exhaustion.
I immediately looked away, hot in the face.
She must have spent the entire night preparing for today, so I shuffled my shoulder a little to comfort her.
I also begin casting restoration magic to sooth Slyvia as she sleeps. Her expression relaxes a bit and the dark rings around her eyes begin to disappear.
I take the moment to also relax my body and take out one of my two pistols. The blade was retracted into the grip and its barrel had been compressed inward, shortening its size.
I click the safety off and both the blade and the barrel instantly extend outward. The blade had extended out of the grip like a switchblade, and the barrel widened and expanded forward.
These weren't normal bullet-firing guns, no one in my world has used those in centuries. These discharged concentrated bolts of pure energy rather than blasting out superheated lead, allowing me the ability to choose the firing mode.
As I had no plans to kill anyone, I currently have the gun set to stun. After retracting the blade and barrel with the safety switch back on, I put the weapon back in my pocket.
I feel my consciousness beginning to fade in and out. I lean my head against Sylvia's. It's soft and warm. My face also feels warm.
Ah, this feeling again…