"State your business!" Guards in shiny silver armour spoke loudly, seemingly amplified by some type of sound magic.
I was promptly placed down before I replied back, knowing my father, I was more 'noble-like' than he was.
"Notify all the guards! Z-rank Roy and his party are currently in a clash against barbarians!"
Their eyes shifted past us, before widening with shock.
"All guards near the west sector, prepare for defensive formation A! We repeat, all guards near the west sector, prepare for defensive formation A!" The large palisade fences began lifting up allowing us to go in, before dropping hard onto the ground.
We had finally entered into the kingdom through the gates and the guards were notified of the situation of the battle. To be frank, I was worried for Roy, why did they prepare a defensive formation but not send guards to help?
Was it because they'd be a hindrance? Even so, I hoped Roy and the others were safe, we had only met for a few days and yet, he had been the greatest teacher albeit being the only 'official' teacher I had.
"Don't worry Lia, they'll survive."
"You don't have to tell me Dad. I trust them."
If anyone was to beat him, it'd have to be a god or something. In fact, I should be praying that the opponent Roy's facing doesn't get beat up too quickly! The kingdom was extremely large up close, inferring from what the guard had said before, there was most likely to be 4 sectors. The one we were at was the 'west sector'.
Even if my family was the lowest of nobles, money wasn't really an issue and we quickly settled into a large house that had two stories.
"Uwaah! The beds are so comfy!"
Dad jumped onto the beds and it almost looked like he was going to break it from how high he jumped; however, it didn't break.
"Oh right, Frey gave me that ring."
"Hm?" He swivelled around, while opening my hand, a mark was left and as I inspected it, Dad leaned closer as well.
"It seems like a storage-purpose ring, those aren't cheap that's for sure." Dad chimed in.
A storage ring? Ah right, Roy had one too, from when he gave me the sword! How was it used though?
"Hand it to me real quick." As I did, he summarised the instructions aloud. "If I recall correctly.. In order to use a storage ring, you have to think of the item within the ring to call it out, and hold the item to put it back, they also say you can visualise what's inside if you close your eyes." Sounds simple enough right? He lightly dropped it back into my hand before wearing it on my pointer finger.
I grabbed a hold of the sword that was given to me by Roy, with a mere of thought, the sword vanished from my hands!
"Well, is there anything inside the ring? They might've left you some gifts!" It was quite obvious he was thinking more on the goodies than anything else. But.. I may have thought the same.
My eyes closed and I thought of a storage-like room in my mind. It took a few seconds before I could see a room, I saw the sword floating around, and overall there wasn't much. Except, there was 4 things besides my sword, a letter, a book, a badge of some sort and a different sword much more extravagant in design than the one I was using.
I held out my hand and one moment after the next, the letter appeared.
"Hm? What's that Lia?"
"How should I know?" He shrugged. "Well, I guess we'll find out now." I quickly added. Opening the letter, the handwriting was rather poor, but not enough to not be illegible.
'Hello Lia! Flynn!'
'By the time you're reading this, we probably separated and went our different ways. I'd like to express my heartfelt gratitude to the both of you, for allowing me to have such an experience during our travels. You don't know how much it means to me, really!'
'You're probably wondering why I wrote this letter, and why I let you travel with us in the first place. Well for one, there was no real reason I guess? That's a lie, haha. I let you travel with us, because I wanted to pass on my techniques, in case I well, were to die.'
'And at first, I was going to teach you, Lia, and after talking with Flynn about your dreams, I felt hesitant. This may be completely out of the blue but, I wanted to know what it was like, being a teacher. And with your persistence, I taught you.'
'Of course, I couldn't teach you everything and, you may be wondering why couldn't I just become a teacher earlier on or later on? Well, to tell the truth, I knew that it was likely that barbarians, in particular the wanted man, 'Lauv Godwin', would attack soon.'
'My first encounter with him was gut-wrenching, and I wholly hated and despised him. He brutally killed my teacher, and I needed something to help quell my anger as much as possible before I faced him. Sorry for using you both.'
'My comrades, my partners, and my dearest friends know that they may also perish alongside me in battle, I may never succeed in my goal but that's fine! I had already gotten something better, to experience the joy that my teacher had experienced.'
'Lia, I hope you'll be able to master the two techniques I taught you, but don't stress about trying to master them in a few days! It takes time, and time doesn't wait for just anyone. For those few who work hard, it feels like it's only been a second!'
'So don't worry, cause I know it'll wait, you're a hard-working girl, Lia. I've seen it with my very own eyes. So when the time comes, when we meet, remember to show me everything you've learnt!'
'If you're reading this, then you probably already know about the book, the sword, and the badge that I left in the ring, the book is almost everything I know. The sword's also valuable and of high quality, so don't break it!'
'And you're probably going to attend an academy when you're older, so use the badge if you're trying to sway the headmaster! It's almost time, so one last thing. Flynn, it goes without saying, take care of your daughter and take care of yourself! You're old but you've still got fire in your eyes don't ya?'
'Lia, you've got a large amount of potential! You're my student after all! Let time guide you and you'll naturally see the path. Just don't rely on it too much!!'
'Your amazing teacher, Roy Stiefal.'
"That punk.. Just cause I let him win, he won't win the next time we face!" Dad gave a hearty laugh, before exiting my room, his fists clenched, and his eyes were stern. I could tell he was concerned too. It was baffling, Roy? Likely to lose? Impossible, no way no way!
After settling in for a few minutes, Dad accompanied me to shop. The variety of shops within the kingdom was vast, looking to go on for miles on end. While Dad and I shopped for clothes.
A few hours went by, looking and trying out different clothes from different shops, finding nothing that suited either me or dad.. My shoulders slouched, and my arms drooped from our unfortunate search.
"I can't believe we couldn't find ONE single good outfit.."
"Whew.. My gold is saved for another day.."
I yelped abruptly, something had suddenly bumped into me from behind. While Falling forwards, they continued to run away. A glint flickered in my eyes.. What was it-?
"That man better watch his fu- ahem.. Are you okay Lia?"
"It's alright Dad, I just got a minor scratch."
"Are you really okay..?"
"Yeah it's really alright, don't worry."
I grabbed the glossy item that fell out from whoever that man was, and it looked to be a ring of sorts. A simple gold ring that had what looked to be runes?
"Dad, do you know what this does?"
He took a closer look, inspecting it but it didn't look like he was succeeding.
"Ehhh sorry Lia, I don't know.. But, it doesn't seem to be a basic runic engraving though."
It was already past noon, but before heading home we went to a shop that sold potions. There were many potions on display and some fetched for up to 300 gold! But those were extremely high quality elixirs. What we were looking for was just a potion that healed minor wounds.
Yes, in this world, there were some who were alchemists, creating a variety of different potions that had different effects using ingredients from seeds, plants, creatures, and minerals. The most basic of healing potions sold for 10 pieces of gold which astonished me but.. There wasn't really anything else that was cheaper. Were all the alchemist stores this expensive?
I gently placed the 10 gold coins onto the desk where a young woman quickly ran out from the back, as if she knew I was about to purchase something. Did she sense me?
"Ah, I'm very sorry but a healing potion is now 12 gold instead of 10.. My boss forgot to change the price this morning.."
What? I felt like complaining but I didn't want to embarrass my Dad, something like having a badly behaved child wouldn't do well for him.
"That's fine.."
Dad placed two more gold coins, and we left with the potion.
"Alchemists price their potions for so much nowadays.. Back in my day they used to be 10-20 silver coins! Inflation AHH! Curse those damn higher-ups.."
I ran into my room, observing the ring that I kept, trying to see what the runes did. What could this ring do? I did everything I could to see if anything that I did could make the ring activate.
Unfortunately nothing that I did to it did anything, touching the runes did nothing, saying random things did nothing, a cringe pose also didn't do anything either. My head dropped onto the wooden desk, the ring lying in front of me, a sigh exuded and I was run dry of ideas.
Maybe putting it on would have some sort of effect? I held the same hand out that had my other ring, as the ring slowly was placed onto my pinkie, my eyes widened.
It was too big.. Despite that, within an instant, the ring shrunk to a smaller size. But nothing else happened, was that it? Was it just an accessory? I tried to take it off however, it grew tighter the more I pulled on it..
It was best to get an artificer to examine it fully, though it was already midnight and my eyes closed shut before I could really do anything.