by Pegaz
John had used the area map in the system to pinpoint where Kelly was and then teleported half a mile away. They wanted to be close to her location, but far enough to stay undetected. This was also a great distance to keep an eye on things with their Scans.
* * *
Hooves pounded against the ground as four knights escorted Kelly back to their camp. There was one rider for each side, boxing her in, preventing the young woman from making any sudden escape attempts.
The head knight was a few dozen feet in the lead. His dark horse blended into the pitch black, but Kelly could see a brightly lit lamp bobbing at its side. It slowly grew closer and bigger, signifying that the steed had slowed and soon stopped.
Not far into the distance, a campfire lightly smoked, dimly lighting the surrounding tents.
Are the prince and princess staying here?
The men guided her horse to a rotting tree stump that they had been using as a post to secure the horses.
The lead knight’s face was eerily lit by the fire as he turned and stared at her. “Follow me.”
Kelly did what she was told and followed him towards the campfire.
When she got there, she could see the prince sitting on a chair with a knight standing at either side of him. He looked up from the fire in front of him and smiled at her gently.
“We’ve sent news about what happened by a messenger pigeon,” the prince started to explain. “We got a reply back from the people in charge in the capital saying that they’d like to do an investigation since one knight died and another—the King of Gralux’s younger brother—is on his deathbed.
“Because it was the princess who ordered the execution of the knight, she was ordered by the king to get back as fast as the horse can carry them, so she went off first without the carriage.
“As a show of good faith, she left with my six knights, but since she’s a woman and needs protecting from all men, she had to take two of her knights that she trusted unconditionally, then she left the rest of her knights here to protect me.
“Treat it like an exchange of hostages until we reach the capital. The princess was in such a hurry that they didn’t even bother taking down their tents.”
Kelly glanced at the tents around them. They indeed seemed to be slightly dishevelled and abandoned.
The prince continued, “You’re to come with me and the princess’ knights to the capital to explain what happened in your own words.” The prince stood up to meet her eye level. “Don’t worry, we all know you were only defending yourself against my knight when he was arguing with you, it was the princess who ordered his execution and I know you couldn’t have had anything to do with that freak lightning.
“I can promise on my status as a prince that nothing will happen to you. I’m even going to support you during the investigation.
“Unfortunately, because it’s such a pressing matter, we have to leave now. It’ll take us months to reach the capital, but we have everything you’d ever need to travel. The princess’ remaining knights will be in charge of your protection as well as my own.”
The prince took a step back and motioned for Kelly to make her way to the gold-trimmed carriage.
Unable to find anything illogical with his story and finding nothing out of place at the campsite, she gave a single nod and followed her new bodyguards to the carriage, prince in tow.
The remaining knights gathered her things from the horse and packed them away in the carriage before tearing down the tents.
It took a short while since they had to work by lamp light, but soon the ride was surrounded by knights upon steeds, ready to start their long journey.
Inside the carriage, Kelly was sitting on one side next to the window and the prince was sitting on the other side of the seat next to the other window.
Opposite them, lying down and taking up the entire seat on that side, was the knight that had been struck by lightning. The prince had no choice but to put him inside the carriage since his uncle couldn’t possibly ride a horse.
Kelly looked out the window and despite it being dark, she could see the knights riding alongside the carriage clearly. Oddly enough, they were holding the reins of the carthorses, leading them carefully along.
I thought they had a driver for the carriage, but it’s the knights that are driving the carriage instead. I suppose that’d make it easier for the knights to stop the carriage if needed.
The prince’s voice broke her thoughts. “Since it’s going to take a while to reach the capital, let’s at least get to know each other a little. Can you tell me what life is like in that town?”
If I answer some of his questions, then maybe I can get answers about dad and this golden badge. The prince should know, right?
* * *
John and Sarah were over a mile high directly above the camp. When they first arrived, they saw the princess and all her knights lying inside the princess’ tent. All the knights were grouped together, it was obvious to them that the prince’s knights had thrown the bodies inside the tent to hide them from Kelly.
Sarah wanted to teleport inside the tent while Kelly and the prince were talking, but John stopped her in case one of the knights stayed back to finish them off or burn the tent down.
After lip reading the prince’s version of events in his Scan, John couldn’t help but laugh. “That guy’s smart. He’s weaved everything into a perfect scenario that wouldn’t set off Kelly’s instincts that there was something wrong. I am a little disappointed she couldn’t recognise the prince’s knights wearing different armour. She might have been too starstruck by the prince, or too shocked by the lightning strike to look at the knights’ faces back in town.”
They waited for the carriage and the knights to set off before teleporting inside the tent.
Sarah’s Scan couldn’t pick up any signs of life from the people in the tent, but when she used the Life Aura skill, it showed all of them were still alive. When she got in the tent she noticed that everyone was paralysed.
All the knights had closed their eyes, waiting for the inevitable. But when they heard movement in the tent, those who were in less extreme conditions opened their eyes and were shocked that someone had found them before they expired.
Sarah walked to the princess and examined her first. When she placed her hand on the princess’ back and absorbed some of the poison, it added a molecule to her collection which surprised her.
She had spent over a decade finding poisons on their current planet and she was sure that she had collected them all, but this one had definitely eluded her.
This must be a poison so rare that it’s non-existent. Where would someone get something like this?
After making sure all the poison was removed, she pushed some paralysis medicine inside the princess’ body. Unfortunately, there were no signs of improvement after a solid five minutes.
Sarah repeated the same process on the knights, but not a single one improved. The only thing she was able to do was stop the poison from affecting their organs.
She turned to John. “I’ve removed the poison, but even my best medicine is ineffective. The poison did too much damage for medicine to be of any use.”
Walking closer to John, she whispered, “I know you can save them since you’ve reached level 9. I’m unable to do it because I’m only level 6.”
John looked at Sarah. “I know you want to save them, but what’ll happen if I do? You would have to stay with them back in town and not look over Kelly with me. Are you sure you can do that? You’d be worried about Kelly the entire time.”
“I know you won’t let anything happen to her,” Sarah replied. “This way, the prince’s ploy won’t work and, if needed, you’d have one more card to play when the time comes. More lives will be saved this way, too.”
John sighed. “Fine, but knock them all out first so they don’t see anything.”
Sarah smiled and spread an anaesthetic mist inside the tent. This was designed to put them into a deep sleep after
only a few seconds, making it perfect for John to work his magic.
John made Soul Power come out of his forehead to gather above his hand.
After reaching level 9, he experimented with the vitality he could create and found out that because he produced more than enough vitality to spread to his entire body, he could actually transfer the excess vitality to other people through the Soul Power.
The last epic skill he was working on now was supposed to automatically generate and move the vitality throughout his body, but he was still able to generate and move it himself before the skill was complete.
He could let the last remaining mind part do it for him, but he thought it best that he didn’t give the Demon in his mind a chance to mess with his soul and the vitality it produced—if it was still around.
Sarah couldn’t transfer vitality until she reached level 9 because she wasn’t able to produce enough vitality for herself, and her body wasn’t full of vitality yet.
The Soul Power above his hand turned into a solid lightly blue coloured ball. He walked over to the princess, knelt down, and touched her forehead with the ball.
The ball got slightly smaller as some of it disappeared into the princess’ forehead, taking the vitality with it.
Afterwards, he did the same for the other eight people.
When he was done, he stood up and faced Sarah. “Suppose it’s a nice change of pace, me saving people instead of killing them. I’ll go catch up with Kelly.”
Sarah gave a light chuckle and nodded before creating threads to wrap around the people on the floor. Once they were secured, she teleported them away.
Chapter 22: Lucky
Weeks had gone by since Kelly had been taken by the prince. Sarah used the Map Icons skill which showed her where John and Kelly were in the world map. Since she was unable to teleport to places she hadn’t been to before, she would pick the closest place she had visited before and fly to John.
The first time she came to check on Kelly, she wanted to save the man who John hit with lightning, but John stopped her since that would reveal everything to Kelly and would defeat the purpose of why they let Kelly come out on her own in the first place.
When she went to check on Kelly the second time, John asked for an update on the princess and the others.
Sarah explained that the vitality John had given them was helping the paralysed muscles return to normal, but the process was painfully slow as the poison did a lot of damage.
When she first did the examinations, she saw that their conditions were much worse than she expected. The patients had a ton of organ damage, but unlike the other areas, their feet were black and rotting.
During this time, John kept to the air above Kelly to keep an eye on her.
He could tell that Kelly was bored because every now and then, she would come out of the carriage and run alongside it just to move her body about. Though he knew the prince wouldn’t allow her to do this if his knights weren’t surrounding the carriage.
Throughout the journey, when it became dark, they would find somewhere to camp and set up a tent for Kelly. In return, Kelly would go off into the surrounding areas to hunt animals for their meals. Surprisingly, the prince only sent one knight to accompany her during the hunt.
He must be trying to show Kelly that she’s not a prisoner, allowing any suspicions she had to disappear.
The prince kept his word as the knights protected him and Kelly to the best of their abilities, but John knew Kelly could beat any and all of them if a fight broke out, so he wasn’t too worried.
During the first day, the prince reintroduced himself as Ronald Gralux, which caused Kelly to ask if the princess’ last name was Bahan after the kingdom, too.
She found out the princess’ full name was Carola Bahan and their ancestors who created the kingdoms used their last names. Since then, it was law that only a person with the last name Gralux or Bahan was able to claim the throne.
The prince noticed that Kelly was trying to fish for information, but when he didn’t tell her what she wanted to know, she would either stop talking as she gazed out the window or go for a run again.
A month and three weeks passed with the same routine.
The lightning-stricken knight didn’t last long into their journey. He passed away peacefully in his sleep.
They had no method of preserving the body, so they had no choice but to bury him near the road. The prince told Kelly that when they got back, he would send a team with a proper coffin to come and collect the remains. They would then bring it back to his kingdom for a royal burial and funeral.
Midday had arrived and Kelly had just gotten back from a run. As she entered the carriage, she heard a knight shout, “Someone’s coming!”
Looking out the window, she noticed a man in leather armour on horseback. His weapon was sheathed at the animal’s side, but the knights had drawn their weapons regardless.
Roland poked his head out the window and impatiently waved his hand at the knight in charge of his protection. “Go! See who it is and what his mission is.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
The knight dropped the reins of the carriage horses and galloped towards the strange man.
He returned a few minutes later with haste. “He’s a messenger headed to a merchant in the town we’ve just come from. He doesn’t know the contents of the letter, but he was told it’s of the utmost importance that he completes this delivery.”
“Let him pass, but ask one of the knights in the back to ride with him for a little while to make sure he isn’t a scout for any bandits,” Roland scoffed, irritated that such a simple task had held up their journey.
“Yes, Your Highness.”
Roland closed his window and glanced over at Kelly. “If he’s a messenger, then he must have passed the princess’ group and he might know who’s in this carriage.
“Sometimes bandits send scouts ahead and have them pretend to be a messenger. These people then report back to the leader and inform them about our formation, how many people are in our group, and how heavily armed we are. If ever they find out this carriage is from one of the royal families, then bandits would give anything to successfully raid our party, capturing us alive for ransom.
“The knight at the back is an expert at finding out the truth, so along the way he will question the messenger about certain things and if the messenger can answer them all, then he’s really a messenger and the knight will let him leave unharmed.
“If not, then he’s a scout for a bandit group and my knight will kill him, but that also means we might get targeted down the road.”
Does he think I’m too stupid to know about these things? Kelly only nodded her head towards Roland before looking out the window again.
The messenger and the knight rode alongside each other for over a mile, but contrary to what the prince described, they rode in silence.
After they reached the two-mile mark, the messenger cautiously turned to speak to the knight. “This is far enough for an escort, right? Shouldn’t you get back to whoever’s in that—”
Before the man could finish speaking, a sharp blade slid across the jugular vein in his neck, causing him to immediately press his hand against the wound. His hand was instantly covered in his warm blood.
A trickle of blood started down his neck through the gaps in between his fingers and soon turned into a crimson river, pooling at his shirt collar as his heart pounded within his chest.
“Today just wasn’t your day,” the knight chided as he returned his knife to its sheath. “We can’t have you telling anyone that you didn’t see the princess along this road before us now, can we?”
The knight, uncaring to the messenger’s condition, watched as the man’s life dwindled away.
He kicked the side of his horse and quickly rode off to catch up with the royal entourage once more.
* * *
High in the sky, John saw everything in his Scan. As soon as the messenger entered his Scan’s r
ange, it picked up the map inside the man’s leather armour and it picked up his fake name and description on the back of it.
It also picked up an airtight letter next to the map. The letter was completely covered in hard wax, making it airtight and impossible for his Scan to see inside.
Seeing that the knight had left, John teleported next to the man and retrieved the letter from inside his leather armour.
Upon reading it, he was surprised that it mentioned immortals and that it was from the king of Bahan.
Looking at the messenger, John used his Life Vision and saw that his life was hanging by a thread. Using the same trick as he did with the princess and her knights, he transferred some vitality to the man while also turning some Toxin Power into medicine to close the wound.
After making sure the man was stable, he hoisted the fellow over his shoulder and teleported above Sarah’s hospital. Once he made sure nobody inside her hospital would see him, he teleported once again, landing next to Sarah.
Sarah was surprised to see her husband had returned without their daughter, but when she saw that he was holding a dying man, she was shocked beyond belief.
“Am I rubbing off on you? It’s surprising to see you save someone without me asking.”
John lifted the man off his shoulder and placed him down on the floor. “Read this.”
Sarah concentrated on reading the letter in John’s hand through her Scan and her mouth fell open.
“Make sure this man survives.” John helped Sarah get him situated into a hospital bed. “When he’s well enough to take care of himself, go look after Kelly for a bit. I’ll go to meet the king to see what information he has to offer.
“I don’t know how long ago this ancestor of his was alive, but if it was before the beastman war started, then the information might be about how to transcend. If it is, then I won’t have to leave to find where my map leads to.”
Sarah did a quick examination of the man, but his wounds were quite obvious. She gave him a sedative and cleaned his soiled clothes. “He’s lucky. He’s only lost some blood and nothing is permanently damaged. He’s not in any real danger now.