"Can you promise that you won't ask me to do anything strange?"
With their deal semi-official, they could start planning things out, but the girl was still a tiny bit cautious. Not because she didn't trust Lucas, but because she was still afraid that Lucas wouldn't ask her to do unlawful acts. "How many times do I have to tell you, I'm not interested in you. I want nothing to do with you, it was you that came to me."
For once, she was somewhat glad that she wouldn't be forced to do anything uncouth but also hurt by his disinterest. Never had someone so clearly stated their disinterest in her.
'Is she really that naive to think we wouldn't just abandon her at the first sight of problems? Ridiculous!'
'No, calm down, the best way to trick someone else is to trick yourself first. If we come across as a helpful person she can use her power for our own good. Never forget, connections are valuable.'
"Then I thank you mister Conrad for helping me, as a pr...! I promise you that I will fulfill your conditions once we reach Avesta.", she said while performing some kind of bow. Lucas wasn't educated on etiquette and he would never bother with those time-wasting actions, but he didn't even have time to acknowledge the bow.
'She made a mistake, what can you make out of it?'
'She must be well known, has wealth and has a function that starts with 'pr', princess, or perhaps someone who helps the prince or princess. The bride of a prince, what else?'
'Prodigy, protector, progeny, there's a lot of words that start with that you know?'
'Then we'll figure it out after talking for a bit longer, she's terrible when it comes to subterfuge so it won't take long.'
Lucas never dropped his facade, his face was as emotionless as he started the conversation. His mind on the other hand was partially ranting and spewing insults at her bad conduct, while the other was thinking about what she could be.
'Should we educate her? If we're successful she could be indebted to us, if I reveal too much she could get suspicious.'
'Now that I think about it, weren't we going to stay hidden? Since when was escorting a princess of a kingdom good for hiding? Goddamnit, you blew it again!'
They decided to set off as soon as possible, waiting around in this broken-down village wasn't a good idea, Lucas had already attracted too much attention to him anyway. Lucas wanted to spend some money on food supplies, but the woman, that had her hood back on to hide her face, wanted a lot more. Matrasses for sleeping, good utensils for eating the food and many more things to make their travel a bit easier. She first wanted a carriage, but this village wouldn't be capable of selling such a thing, even a horse was asking too much.
"We should take some pots with us as well if we ever need to cook!", she seemed to be a lot more relaxed now that she wasn't alone, but Lucas found it to be absolute hell. "Those are luxuries you can buy when we get there."
Lucas really wanted to leave, but it didn't look like he would leave any time soon. Clothes for when it was raining, better shoes for in the forest, and the list went on and on. "Listen, we can't bring so many things with us alright? I don't even have enough money to pay for all of these things.", that last one was a lie to let her have some sympathy for him or to let her pay for it all.
"What are you talking about? I have a Space Ring.", she said assuming that it was the most obvious thing ever. Lucas didn't show any understanding, only confusion was visible on his face. He had learned a lot about magic, most beginner runes, and even the principles were ingrained into his head, but he had never heard of a space ring.
"You know... a space ring? With a dimensional pocket inside? No?"
The words didn't make too much sense to him, but he could quickly link them in his head, 'Dimensional pocket? A pocket that leads to another dimension? That doesn't seem too likely.'
"So you're saying that there is a separate space inside that ring that can contain anything?", Lucas was flabbergasted at the level of magic had reached, 'So are there dimensional or space runes?'
He was starting to get eager to just dismantle the ring to figure out how the runes worked and their intricacies, yet he had self-restraint and waited for the so-called high-standing girl to continue her story. "Correct, almost anything can be put in here, only things that are alive cannot be placed inside of a space ring."
'Why not?'
'We should test it out, steal it from her and let's see if we can put her in it!'
"I see, that does allow us to carry more than what we need, but I don't have the finances to buy everything.", diverging the subject back to what he actually wanted the girl didn't disappoint.
"That's fine, I'll purchase it, I still have some pocket money."
'How unbelievably naive, if someone in this village heard there was a girl that still had some pocket money enough to buy carriages or horses, what do you think would happen? She wouldn't see the light of day, or be kidnapped and ransomed.'
'But nobody heard, so let's just be happy that we don't have to pay a cent, we might even leach off her.'
Now that they had more finances than initially thought, Lucas took advantage of her and let her finance a cloak for Lucas. It's not a magical one like the princess had, but it hid his hair and in the right setting, it could cover part of his face through shadows.
After buying way more than what was necessary, Lucas convinced her to start moving, Lucas was in a hurry to reach Rank 1, but if his companion was being chased, there was no reason to stand still. With the money that the girl had, they could probably buy a horse, but Lucas warned her not to. That would only show how deep her pockets were, everyone in this little village knows each other, so rumors would spread fast.
Taking out his map he had a crude drawing of where he was headed, luckily there were roads leading to most cities, so he could simply follow them. It would leave them more vulnerable, but they could also move faster than going through the woods.
The map itself was crude and showed the north of the Holy Kingdom with Frigus above it. The countries to the east and west were left out, there wasn't enough space. But Lucas knew that this world was a lot bigger than his first impression. The mansion of the baron was situated at the border of the country, yet it took him weeks to cross it.
'So that little line is a few weeks of travel at a high speed, great.', he would now be stuck with this princess for a while. With that, they set off, on their journey to Avesta.