"You useless insignificant fools!" The king yelled at his knights after they came back to deliver the news that his daughter and Neo Tempest had escaped from the castle and there was no way to chase them down quickly unless they fixed the bridge.
"Get out of my sight and find them!"
The knights adhered to his instructions not wanting to face the king's wrath for their failure. The king eyes twitched as he turned around and gazed angrily at Tazuki who trembled in his shoes.
Tazuki knew this was all his fault for revealing the prophecy to princess Vanessa but who could blame him. She was as fierce, strong and fast as her mother and she even followed in her footsteps and became a warrior.
Prince Nicholas got to his feet, the title of the runaway princess sounded glorious to his ears and he didn't want to miss the fun.
"Let me lead the knights and hunt down the traitors father."
Nicholas has always been searching for an opportunity to put Vanessa down, he was jealous that the king paid more attention to her and showered her more with love and affection. There was no way he was going to miss this.
"Ah yes, my son."
The king hurried over to Nicholas and placed his hands on his shoulders realizing that he was second in power when it comes to skills and abilities after Vanessa, if any one in the castle had a chance to return with both Vanessa and Neo. It was him.
"Yes, you'll lead a squadron of my army, find and bring back my daughter and that wretched Tempest boy alive. I want to be the one to take his life."
"As you wish father." Nicholas bowed to him acknowledging his orders.
He turned around and left the throne room with a wicked smile on his face, he wasn't planning on bringing them back alive. Vanessa was the only thing standing in the way of him ascending the throne, even if he was the first born son of the king Vanessa had shown promising signs that she would become a great leader. While Nicholas had accomplished nothing so he father viewed him somewhat as a disappointment.
"This is my chance to rid myself of that princess, then assuredly I will be next in line for the throne." He encouraged himself to proceed with his plans of ending his sister's life.
However he couldn't begin the manhunt until the large and long bridge was fully repaired and that required a lot of time.
A few hours had passed and the horse Vanessa and Neo rode in arrived in a remote village — Uraka town in an abandoned house, it was quite far from the castle. Vanessa knew that her and Neo couldn't stay in the Kingdom for long, she knew by now her father would have ordered a complete sweep of the kingdom just to find the traitors. Their only option was to flee to another kingdom.
"We leave in 20 minutes, go refresh yourself." Vanessa spoke to Neo in a way he felt like she was ordering him around.
"You are not the boss of me princess, but yeah sure." Neo replied.
Vanessa turned to face Neo after patting the head of the horse as she felt slightly disrespected.
"Your a citizen of the Suzana empire, and I'm your princess so yeah, the boss of you."
"I'm from the Suzana empire?" Neo asked himself a bit loudly, he thought he was from another kingdom seeing how he was treated and such.
"Yes, you are." Vanessa threw a bag at him which he caught swiftly, he was surprised at his reflexes but it was nothing to be shocked about after all he was inhabiting the body of an assassin.
"We'll need some supplies for when we enter into the Silvercrest kingdom, think you can handle that?"
[Quest completed]
[You have gained 50XP]
A message from the system appeared in his field of vision finally, it seems he had finally completed his first quest which he thought to be extremely difficult. Even the most toughest of questions had one of the most easiest solutions.
"Sure." Neo replied.
After several minutes of scavenging the abandoned house, Neo found some edible and long lasting food such as corn. To make his job easier there was an apple tree that grew just behind the house.
[You have gained 5XP]
Another message appeared in his field of vision, it turned out there were certain conditions he needed to fulfill in order to level up his stats, his only problem was what the conditions were.
"I see, so in order to level up I have to fuf-" Neo was interrupted by Vanessa's voice which called out to him.
"Neo? Is everything alright?" She asked finding strange for anyone to murmur quickly to themselves.
"Yeah.. just contemplating on some stuffs is all." He replied her closing the bag which was filled with corn and fruits.
"You know sometimes I wonder myself if the prophecy is actually true." She uttered to herself shaking her head, she got that he was the son of elite knights from the great Tempest family but what she had seen so far from him made her doubt that as well as the prophecy.
"What prophecy?" She peaked Neo's curiosity, in her mind he deserved to know the truth and also her actions on why a noble princess would help someone the king considered a traitor did demand answers so she told him.
"Let me get this straight, your dad started this war due to his massive desire and greed of wanting to acquire the other kingdoms resources even if it meant by force.
After meeting the Sage Of The Cross and hearing the prophecy, he hunted and killed my family one by one in order to stop the prophecy from coming to light. After being used as his pawn you decided to help me and fulfill the prophecy in order to put an end to the war?" Neo spoke quickly trying to summarize and understand what Vanessa had told him.
"Yes..that pretty much covers everything I told you. It's the least I could do after being used as a pawn and being the cause of your family's demise." Vanessa spoke trying to atone for her sins.
"But still, fighting and going against your father?" Neo asked knowing how she must feel by betraying her family.
"My mother died thanks to the pointless war he caused, I'll end this war inorder for my mother's soul to rest in peace. And also to prevent losing any of my family from the mess they started. But we still have a long way to go and we can't move further if we get caught can we? Let's go!" She exclaimed giving out orders once more.
"Tch, control freak." Neo muttered to himself as he headed towards the horse.
"What was that!?" She shouted on hearing Neo referring to her as a control freak.
"Nothing!" Neo picked up the pace and climbed the horse after securing the bag filled with provisions at it's side. He decided it was best to let her stay Infront as he had no idea where to go, he was still familiarizing himself with the world he transmigrated into.