"My Lady, it's time to go." A maid called out from behind the door. Penelope and Nari had decided to match for this event, wearing a soft shade of yellow of a dress that was designed to look like the clivia flower that's facing downwards with a collared cape top that's decorated with tiny jewels at its rims. Nari had a crown braided half updo whereas Penelope wore a braided messy side low bun.
They both walked out of the room once they gathered their things hand in hand and strolled to the entrance. Reynold was already there along with Ayman and the Duke. "Father. Reynold. Prince Ayman" Penelope greeted, Reynold and Ayman wore matching shades of turquoise.
This sudden trend of matching mentor-mentee is due to a small tradition where the duo would wear something noticeable in order to know who is with who and not get lost during outings, or at least be able to find each other again.
All that's left was Derrick and his Mentee, whom Penelope never got to see as she was distracted by her Lily. Said girl was pouring and tugging gently on her dress, impatient to get going and see if her friends were at the place they were going.
"Penelope, may you please introduce your ward?" The duke asked politely as she noticed Ayman at the side smirking smugly with Reynold raising an eyebrow. She inwardly rolled her eyes and wondered who Derrick's ward was. As the saying goes, talk about the devil, the devil shall appear. Or at least something like that. Derrick came in wearing a deep green outfit with his ward, a girl who Penelope very much recognises.
With fiery red hair and light brown eyes, the girl excitedly said, "诗妍姐姐! 我不知道你是这个公国的一部分." (Older Sister Siyeon! I did not know you were part of this principality.)
With a smirk Penelope replied with a wink, "格蕾丝妹妹,我是这个公国的养女. 所以我没有理由不参与其中." (Sister Grace, I am the adopted daughter of this principality. So there is no reason for me to not be part of this.)
Just as Grace was about to reply, she suddenly closed her mouth and realised she interrupted the now wide-eyed duke, who was about to start the introduction. She faced him and bowed 90°, "我真的很抱歉- eh! I meant, I am very sorry" She enunciated as an invisible cold sweat broke out from everyone's face.
"It's alright, Princess Grace. Now, how about we all introduce our wards." The duke kindly uttered wryly. "Though it seems that some of us surprisingly already know each other…" which Penelope became quickly interested in with a small chalice ornament on a cabinet nearby, inspecting it very closely with Nari mimicking.
"Anyways, Derrick, why don't you go first." The duke stated. Derrick stepped up and brought Grace forward. There was no need for mentors to introduce themselves to others as the Mentees will be the ones communicating most of the time. Furthermore, Mentees were introduced to a list of mentors available before the selection ceremony so that they can familiarise quickly.
"你好, I am Grace Barn. The 1st princess of Baymard, adopted sister to King Landon Barn and Momo Barn, who is currently under the wing of Crown Prince Callisto." Grace did so with a thick Chinese accent and a small bow with her right hand lifting the side of her dress .
Baymard was originally the second largest city of Arcadina, an empire that neighbours Eorka in the Northern continent: Roepeu, which both empires are situated in. But King Alec Barn, father of Landon Barn, decided to throw away the "barren" land and banish Landon there, hiding such acts by "crowning" Landon as the kind of Baymard. Which honestly was the stupidest thing Alec Barn had done as Landon, a fellow dimension traveller and host of a system, ended up building a strong and rich kingdom for himself.
After her was Reynold's ward, "مرحبا, My name is Ayman. I come from Zephyria and I am second to the country's throne. A pleasure to meet your acquaintance." Short and terse yet his stare bore through Penelope's head who had already looked somewhere behind him in order to not meet his eyes. Reynold and the Duke looked between them with their heads tilted.
"Penelope, it's your turn." Derrick reminded her. Nari stepped forward and bowed how Grace did. "안녕하세요, I am Chang Nari. In my country, we say our last names first and our first is last. So it is Nari Chang in your format of names. I am the princess of Aida, the capital is Seoul. I like to build stuff which isn't really what normal ladies would do, but it's what I love. Pleased to meet you all."
Okay, so she may have rambled on a bit, but what is she supposed to do?? She is nervous okay!? There are too many people in one room, let's not even talk about the train wreck of a nervous breakdown she had right before the selection ceremony. So cut her some slack! She's just 6! Oh wait, she's rambling again…
Nari received nods of acknowledgement from the other mentor-mentee and it was as if she passed her finals!
"Since we've done the introductions, let's all go to the carriage. It's large enough to fit all seven of us. Though we've taken longer than necessary, we can still arrive on time" The duke stated as he strolled through the door of the entrance.
Once they all climbed in, Ayman inquired, "Your Grace, may I ask as to where we are headed?"
"Of course, I was just about to tell you once we've settled. We will be going to Summer's Market. The Emperor has decided to push this event earlier so as to create a bond before we go through the other event." The duke replied jovially calm.
"I see now, I understand, you have my thanks for clarifying." Ayman nodded, eyes arching along with a far to wide smile.
Penelope on the other hand, absolutely did not like this. There are four seasonal markets around the world, located at their peak points: North, East, South, and West markets. Each place opens and closes when the seasons change, Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn respectively. As an example, if the current season of Eorka is Winter, then the only available world market is the Northern Market, or better known as Winter's Market.
To make sure this system stays in place, the only way to get to these markets is by a teleportation circle, which can be only one in capital cities of countries. For example, if country A is in winter, they can use the teleportation circle to go to Winter's Market, however, links to Summer, Spring, and Autumn's Market will be temporarily cut off.
The teleportation circle can also be used to travel to other countries and empires but the fees for travelling there is ridiculously high compared to riding a horse to travel to the next kingdom.
Since this month is Summer, the market we'll be heading to… is near Zephyria… No wonder Ayman was so damn smug about this trip… ugh, Penelope will have to deal with his obsessive brother. She'll have to make sure her assigned guard is nearby, she should get Eckles to stand by her too.
Any guards or servants will be in a different and smaller carriage, which is less conspicuous. Thankfully, Penelope was allowed to bring Eckles with her for protection. Though it is unfortunate he'll be lumped in with the other malicious guards…
"Siyeon jiějiě,要多久才能到" (Sister Siyeon, how long will it take to arrive?) Grace asked, she could just ask it in Eorkan, but that won't be as special when everyone knows what you're tryna say. Besides, she's tryna garner a bit of superiority over others of being able to talk to her favourite sister alone in public! It's obviously not because most people are older than her or that she's too embarrassed from her mediocre Eorkan speaking skills!
The Eorkan language is basically the English of Earth, it's spoken widely throughout the world due to the many conquests and invasions the empire had done. Eorka was basically the Britain of the world, in terms of history. Though not as strong as Britain's influence.
"嗯? 哦,是的,大约十五分钟后我们就到达传送阵了." (Um? Oh yes, we will arrive at the teleportation circle in about 15 minutes.) Penelope smiled softly, ignoring the side-eyed she's receiving from Reynold and Derrick and laying back on the plush seat.
Just as Reynold wanted to inquire about something, a snow white owl barged into the carriage through the window with a screech. It landed on the window and lifted its leg up to reveal a letter. "Penelope, let me check it, it might be malicious-" The duke spoke hurriedly just as Penelope was about to untie the letter from the bird's leg.
"Do not worry, Father, I know this bird" Penelope interrupted wryly, "Her name is Hedwig… It's a friend's messenger." With a sigh, she took the letter and opened it.
Dear PinkyPie,
I hope this letter is received quickly, I don't wanna deal with the bullshit that is about to come without my bestie, but we don't always get what we want, do we?
Like that one time we only knew two of the three elements of combustion we made a "bag" of a long tube of plastic and taped a baggy of gun power with a dynamite fuse inside the eight foot long tube. We then filled the tube with natural gas and sealed it up. We put it in the back (hanging out) of our station wagon and drove down a side road until we were in back of the drive-in movie screen.
I'm sure you remember what happened, blew up in our face worse than Magical Hitler-wannabe failing tryna kill a babe.
Anyways, just a heads up from ur friendly neighbourhood otherworldly boy-who-lived, Callisto will be coming. Honestly, ur so damn lucky that I'm close to him! And also, pinkie pie-obsessed Arab Prince is waiting on the other end of the teleportation circle. I'm overworked! So u better give me smth in return for telling you all this!
Yours truly,
Wannabe HP ୧| ͡ᵔ ﹏ ͡ᵔ |୨
Penelope inwardly snorted and rolled her eyes, shaking her head. The letter was written in English rather than Eorkan, the body-he-transmigrated-in's nationality. "You have friends?" Reynold asked with mocking wide eyes. "And where's yours?" Penelope rebutted with a raised brow. The stuttering that followed made her smirk.
"I was so busy that I had forgotten about a childhood friend of mine who travelled with me when I was younger. We recently made up and now are exchanging letters. He's very fun to be around" She told the duke with a sparkle in her eyes, leaving out the fact that he was also her assigned guard by the academy and a transmigrator from the same world.
Though Landon Barn is a transmigrator, he is from a different dimension compared to her guard. It was a crazy coincidence that the guard was actually her bestie from Korea. We definitely made up very well with a stupid idea. Penelope's smirked widened from that thought.
The horse outside neighed and the coach informed them that they had arrived. We all got out and faced where the teleportation circle was. It was a tall platform that was a s aside as a football field with ancient runes engraved on the floor. A cone-shaped barrier lined around the perimeter and flora and fauna wrapped its limbs around the pillars and sorted in pedantic rows on the ground, lining up at the edge of the path ahead.
There were other carriages that just came with their wards following after. Just as the Eckharts and their wards were about to step up the stairs, a voice was heard calling.
"Princess! What a lovely coincidence, I was worried since you didn't answer some of my recent letters!" Fuck! That devil is here! Penelope turned around and saw Callisto alongside with his personal assistant, Cedric Porter, who looked rightfully ruffled with expensive Louis Vuitton bags under his eyes.
Shit. Goddamn..