The servant girl must have been talking about Adrian the King. So he was the one who saved me?
When Nicola first noticed something was wrong, she had already tried to reverse time to heal herself. But she didn't have much wind elements left in her body, and her wings were completely destroyed, making it impossible to absorb from her surroundings.
So now all she could do was lie helplessly in bed. She should already be grateful that she didn't die from her severe injuries.
But Nicola still couldn't figure out what those exploding light particles were. As someone who came from Earth, she thought they were similar to missiles, but their flight paths were different. Each one had power close to a small 'Beta Shock Bomb'!
She could only guess that it must be some defense system that Adrian created to protect the floating city.
Thinking carefully, Nicola realized she never really knew much about Lantine Oasis. Galadra only told her this city was left behind by an ancient civilization and might help fight against the Ancient God Religion. That's why she wasn't prepared for how difficult it would be to deal with.
Of course, this information wasn't really a big secret to me anymore. But for Nicola, who had never lost a battle before, this was her first major defeat and the reason she ended up in such a humiliating situation.
Just imagine - she had never fallen so low since birth. If she hadn't been rescued in time, she would have been in an even more miserable state when she woke up.
Addiontionally, she had watched too many wild videos before, and Eldoria Continent itself had many extremely dark and questionable aspects. Thinking that she might be humiliated by this world's Adrian in various ways, Nicola, who always had a strong prejudice against him, couldn't help but shed tears of regret for the first time.
"I heard you're awake? I'm really sorry for hurting you like this. How are you feeling now?"
A familiar holographic image appeared in the middle of the room - it was Adrian. Although he was speaking words of concern and apology, Nicola couldn't see any real "sorry" in his appearance.
Seeing that she looked unhappy, Adrian sighed and didn't wait for a response. Instead, he formally announced his position:
"Anyway, we in Parristol don't want to be enemies with any member of the angel race, and we don't want to cause any unnecessary trouble. So I not only saved you, but I also promise to let you rest here safely. During this time, I will send messengers to look for your people to take you back. Please rest well for now!"
After all, Nicola's intention to force her way into New Parristol was very obvious, so Adrian's decision to take care of her despite this was quite generous.
However, he also gave her a warning at the end, telling her not to cause trouble in the city again. If there was any disturbance, the Divine Punishment would completely eliminate those threats immediately.
After saying everything, the holographic image disappeared from the room without leaving any trace.
"So tell me what exactly is this Divine Punishment thing!"
At this point, Nicola was still very unwilling to accept the situation, but she couldn't even move now, let alone cause more trouble!
As they say, when under someone's roof, you have to bow your head. She could only follow the advice and behave for now.
However, as an angel, she still had some light element magic left. She was forced to try using "Healing" magic, which she used to look down upon, to slowly heal her body.
The angels' "Healing" magic was a basic survival magic that every newborn angel must master. It was specifically used to heal angel bodies made of pure light elements and could only be learned by angels. It was so important that it was included in the memory implantation of the Angel Descent Formation.
Although Nicola and the other newborn angels from our batch didn't receive these memories because the Angel Descent Formation was interrupted, we were later forced to learn some theoretical knowledge when we returned to Edenmere.
However, unlike me and Cyra, she had almost never used this magic before, which led to very poor healing effects. Even after using up all her light magic, Nicola barely managed to ease the pain a little, let alone heal her injuries.
At this moment, she regretted again - why did she insist that stupid magic wasn't worth learning?
Fortunately, since Adrian chose to save her, he naturally wouldn't leave her injuries untreated. The girl she met earlier was one of the staff assigned to take care of Nicola's daily bandaging and medicine changes. They even took care of all her meals!
Several days passed peacefully, even though both sides remained suspicious and cautious of each other.
"Lady Angel, it's time for your meal."
Several servant girls carried food through multiple layers of protective shields into the room. Although they were all very respectful and polite, for some reason, Nicola, lying in bed, suddenly felt like she was being kept as a pet.
"Get out! Even if I starve to death, I won't eat any more of your food!"
She shouted at the group with all the strength she had barely recovered, but unfortunately, her voice wasn't very loud.
Although her condition had improved a lot after several days of care, being unable to contact Galadra for help and feeling "stranded" made Nicola's hatred for the culprit grow even stronger.
Adrian, as the king of Parristol, seemed to understand that he was being resented, so he never came to visit her in person. At most, he only checked on her situation through "remote video," which left Nicola with no way to vent her anger even if she wanted to.
What's worse was that several hours after the servants left with the food, her constantly growling stomach made her regret again, so she had no choice but to call them back.
"This is so good!"
Sitting on the bed and taking big bites of bread, Nicola was surprised to find that this bread was completely different from the black bread common in Eldoria Continent. It felt a bit like refined pastries from Earth, but tasted even better.
In front of good food, she finally realized how stupid her earlier thoughts of hunger strike were. Looking at the servants standing nervously in front of her, afraid she might get angry again, she suddenly made a malicious guess.
"You must all have been forced by Adrian, right? I can guess - that guy probably used his royal status to force you to come to this city. Moreover, he's always been best at luring girls!"
After all, Nicola had heard some things about what happened in Parristol. In her view, New Parristol was completely barren and couldn't survive in the sky for long without outside resources. Following this logic, she concluded that normal humans wouldn't want to leave the rich and prosperous Astralrealm Kingdom to join this fallen royal family's restoration effort.
"Not at all! Before the new city rose into the sky, we were all original Parristol residents who had been oppressed by the Astralrealm Kingdom for a long time. Thanks to His Majesty for not forgetting his people and rescuing us, successfully escaping both the empire and kingdom's pursuit. Otherwise, who knows how long our suffering would have continued!"
However, the servants' answers were completely unexpected - it seemed Adrian was indeed well-supported by these people.
While talking among themselves, the girls also mentioned that New Parristol had a large automated crop-growing ecological system underground. This system was not only amazing but also had complete processing facilities, enough to meet the entire city's food needs. Everyone said life now was much better than before.
"..."
This made Nicola suddenly lose interest, and even the food in her mouth didn't taste as good as before.
No wonder Galadra valued this city's role so highly. However, her plan to cause trouble and seek revenge not only failed but also made a normal alliance even more impossible.
Of course, Nicola understood in her heart that her conflict with Adrian was basically centered around love rivalry and jealousy. After suffering this painful lesson, she somewhat realized that it wasn't really fair to take out her anger on this world's Adrian, who knew nothing about it. To put it bluntly, she was just asking for trouble...
However, having grown up in a privileged environment and always being proud, she wasn't willing to accept this self-critical conclusion. So in the end, she inevitably pushed the root cause onto Adrian.
In Nicola's eyes at that time, all of this could be attributed to his failure to recognize the situation that led to her current predicament. Adrian had only defeated her using external forces, but she was completely different - as long as she was still alive, it meant she still had a chance to turn things around!
Nicola made up her mind again - she must let this world's Adrian see her true power and make him realize what a terrible mistake he had made. Who exactly was he messing with!!!
A small setback was only temporary. With strong power, even the worst situation could be turned around!