The next day, the preparations for leaving the capital and going to Stahl City was completed. It was nothing too grand, just a carriage, and a single knight who was also the driver of the carriage.
Zagan said his farewell to Isabelle, to which she was a bit disappointed, but she didn't say anything out loud.
Zagan was disguised. He didn't want to attract any attention to himself while going to the lost city. The Empress had done a great job at secretly moving him.
She told the imperial family that 'Zagan is going on a trip to discover himself. He feels that he has reached a bottleneck in his magical prowess and is having difficulty in sleeping because of it. He will return within 3 weeks.'
'Truly amazing. She said it with such a straight face too... the empress of the Asherion Empire truly is terrifying... lying out of her teeth so smoothly... Well, I guess she is Zagan's mom. He probably inherited his calculative mind from Evangeline.', Leon thought.
The knight that accompanied Zagan looked like he was 19 to 20 years old, if not a bit older. He wasn't as handsome as Zagan, but he was definitely one of the more good-looking people in the world, with gray hair and equally gray eyes, and a muscular physique.
Zagan posed as a merchant, wearing normal clothes, with a bit of leather armor on the arms, legs and shoulders.
The knight, whose name is Theodore, a character Leon doesn't recognize, but is apparently one of the strongest knights from the Empress's legion. He was posing as a regular carriage driver wearing a hidden chainmail armor beneath the sap-green full-sleeve shirt he wore above the sandal-colored full-length pants. The full-length clothes were to conceal his amazingly sculpted body.
'Maybe he was some NPC that didn't have any dialogue or nametag? Just there to fill the room, and maybe even kill intruders, or be a part of a cutscene...? I don't remember a 'Theodore' being there in the Crimson palace...', Leon racked his brain but couldn't find anything regarding Theodore.
The two of them left the Crimson Palace right at sunrise. They would have to travel for 6 days to reach Stahl City. They could reach the city one day earlier as the health of the horses were far superior to the average horse, and they could run faster, had better stamina and needed less rest.
"Your highness, this is going to be quite a long journey... We will have to rest at 3 different cities before we get to our destination... May I ask why we are going so far, your highness?", Theodore asked. He had a smooth but seasoned voice. It wasn't as deep as Zagan's but is was bass-y.
"First of all, I'm not 'Your Highness' right now. My alias is 'Leon'. Call me that, or just call me 'Sir Leon'. And to answer your question, I am going there as I have found something of interest that demands my attention there. You will know when we get there.", Zagan answered.
"Ah! Pardon me, your hi- I mean, Sir Leon.", Theodore said while fumbling some words.
Previously, Zagan would have never accepted anyone to join his quest. He only accepted Thedore, as it was Evangeline guaranteeing him about Theodore's loyalty. Zagan still didn't fully trust his mother, but he wanted to give it a shot. And either way, Zagan thought that he might need the help of a knight if he wanted to effectively pull of the cheese method of getting the blueprint.
Originally the plan was to use the Demilich summon for the job, but the low HP of the demilich could prove to be extremely fatal to the plan. Leon had previously used the demilich summon to effectively do the cheese, but after trying it over and over, he came to the conclusion that using the demilich summon was a gamble, as it didn't produce the same results each time.
End of an Era was a single player game, and it didn't have any function like commanding an NPC to do one exact thing over and over again or stand on an exact coordinate. Leon had to make a mod for the game himself which allowed him to modify the NPC's AI code in-game, in real time. He had run numerous experiments with that mod, seeing what was possible with an NPC's move-set, and even played around with boss move-sets just to see what could be possible within the game's engine.
'Ah... those times were so fun...', Leon recalled finding bugs in the game and exploiting them to create ridiculous farms and other nonsense.
{*NOTE: The fictional game I'm using here, End of an Era is heavily inspired by games like Skyrim and Elden ring. I've of course added my own little remix to the game, but still kept it realistic. Like, a game called 'End of an Era' could actually exist in the real world. I can confidently say that, as I have experience in Game Development myself.}
{If you want to know more about the idea behind the game, 'End of an Era', comment on this paragraph. If there are a significant amount of you, I will create a bonus chapter about the game design of 'End of an Era'.}
Enough of that, lets get back to the story.
...
The journey was mostly silent, with Theodore sometimes groaning and stretching his body, presumably out of boredom.
"Hey, Theodore.", Zagan suddenly spoke up, startling Theodore.
"Y-yes, your hi- I mean, Sir Leon?", he replied.
"Tell me about yourself. I'm bored of doing nothing.", Zagan asked.
"Well, your highness, I'm not really that special... but, if you insist, I'll tell you..."
"I insist. Also, stop calling me Your Highness."
"Ah! Sorry, your- I mean, Sir Leon.", Theodore clicked his tongue at his own mistake.
"Well... I'm not that special... I was raised at an orphanage, and joined the army at the age of 14. By the age of 18, I was recognized for my abilities and granted knighthood by the Empress, under her legion."
"Wow. You must be quite talented then, huh?"
"Not at all, yo-... Sir Leon, you are much more talented than I am. I heard that you already reached the 4th circle, and are steadily progressing towards 5th circle. I also heard that your spells are superior to that of other mages-"
"Enough with the flattery, Theodore. I'm going to sleep.", Zagan interrupted Theodore and silenced the conversation.