Northern part of the world.

  Tvarta – the Holy Capital.

  Within a large, greyish white citadel, a tall man dressed in pure white armour moved through the halls. The armour was thick, with strands of gold streaking across it to accent it, while a thick, fuzzy cape drooped from his shoulders, with the thickest part located around the neck of the man.

  In his helmet, not a bit of his face was visible – just a pair of pupils that shone through the darkness. On his right hip, was a sheathed sword, the end of its handle decorated with three dragon heads, each one having a pair of sapphires as eyes. The man walked towards a large pair of gates at the end of a long, tall hall. Two other armoured men stood guard, their armour distinctly different from the mans, as it had some symbolistic features to it – mainly imitating the appearance of a dragon.

  As the man approached, the guards quickly moved to open the gates, letting the man pass through into the room beyond. After he entered the room, the gates were closed after him. He walked farther into the room, stopping at its center before kneeling before the elevated desk in front of him.

  The room was rather large and had a cylindrical shape to it.

  At the top of the room, the ceiling had a mural, showcasing nine dragons spinning around a centric light — this was a mural depicting the creation of the world by the nine Primal Dragons. “I have come by your request, your Holiness.” The man spoke, his voice rather rough and deep.

  At the desk in front of him, sat another heavily armoured figure – only this one's armour was a lot thicker than the man's. Its armour also was shaped in jagged ways, with its helmet resembling the open jaws of a dragon, while two more dragon heads shaped the shoulder pads. From the armoured figures armour, a multilayered blue cloak drooped down, resting on the floor.

  This armoured man was Krason – the King of the Holy Night Order as well as the ruler of Tvarta and ambassador of the World. In addition, he is Aenergin.

  “Harcone, good to see that my message reached you in time.” Krason spoke up, his voice deep and majestic, while at the same time having a little semblance of multiple individuals speaking at the same time. “First, tell me, how have things been faring in Sertalia?”

  Harcone lowered his head lower before the Holy King.

  “The elven royal family of Khelnos are hard at work to investigate the strange occurrences happening around the Primordial Mountain range. They also have managed to capture several envoys that are part of the cult, whilst they were trying to smuggle resources through the Natures Preserve.” Harcone replied, before lifting his head up to look at Krason.

  “That’s good to hear. Then I suppose I can leave the rest for them to handle.” Krason sighed, before leaning forward and getting up from his large throne-like chair, placing his arms behind his back and moving towards the staircase on the right side that led down to where Harcone was kneeling. “Please, stand up.” Harcone immediately did as Krason had asked, not saying anything, placing his hands behind his back as well, as he took a formal stance.

  “May I inquire as to why I was called back from Sertalia so early?” Harcone asked.

  Krason remained silent for a moment, moving to stand in front of Harcone, before moving his arms to his sides, before flicking the cloak which drooped from his shoulders forward a bit, to hide his arms. “Simple. I want you to investigate something.”

  Harcone exhaled.

  “Your Holiness, while I don’t doubt your judgement of decision making, shouldn’t you send someone else? Surely it can’t be important enough for me to abandon my post at Sertalia.”

  “I will send someone to oversee the matter at Sertalia while you investigate this new situation.” Krason responded almost instantly. Harcone remained silent for a moment, before exhaling again. “I am listening, your Holiness.”

  “Then I’ll get to the point,” Krason reached his right hand into the air, a small sphere manifesting in his palm with a gentle flash of a white light. Then, he lowered his arm down before walking closer to Harcone and handing the sphere over to him. “Take a look at this.” Harcone took the sphere, looking down at it as he raised it to a more comfortable viewing level.

  After a moment, the sphere lit up with a recorded image inside it. It was of the Southern Beast, seemingly fighting something. Then, a large burst of red lightning and clouds hit it, seemingly forming a serpent, which dashed through the beast, going into the air above it and then diving down onto it. Mere seconds later, a giant storm formed around the beast as it tried to escape, the magical energy of its attempts to attack whatever it was attacking being seemingly absorbed. The storm engulfed it and completely disintegrated it, before the storm settled down.

  Then, the recording ended.

  Harcone was slightly lost for words. He lifted his gaze up at Krason. “Your Holiness, this recording—”

  “It was captured by one of the members of the Overshadow alliance. A representative brought it to my desk, saying that it would be something they believed the Holy Night Order would surely love to look into.” Krason explained a bit, taking the sphere back from Harcone, throwing it into the air, where it vanished in a white flash. Harcone grew a bit suspicious. “The Overshadow alliance? What were they doing near the Owl Empress' pet?”

  Krason shrugged.

  “I am none the wiser. The alliance is as tight lipped as always when it comes to what they do or what business they engage in.” He replied, before turning towards the large windows in the room, walking up to them and looking out at the large capital city beyond them. “I was told the recording was captured not too far from Ordial, specifically, at the southernmost border, near where the seal of Oprass’ daughter is located.” He threw a gaze over his left shoulder at Harcone. “I think you can put together what I want you to do, Harcone.”

  The knight nodded gently, before turning towards Krason and bowing towards him. “I understand, your Holiness. You wish for me to investigate what or who killed the Southern Beast and determine whether they’re a potential threat.” Krason nodded gently, turning his gaze away again. “You’re almost correct, there is one more thing.”

  Harcone lifted his head up, an eyebrow raised under his helmet.

  Krason turned towards the knight, keeping his arms behind his back, as the gentle rays of the sun outside the window shone upon his figure. “I wish for you to find Oprass’ daughter. With the guardian dead, her seal most likely has broken and who knows where she may have wandered off to. Find her and bring her back to Tvarta, however, refrain from using force to do so.” Krasons gaze shone gently, to weigh the importance of the sentence. “Oprass will not be happy if her daughter is treated harshly.”

  Harcone shed a slight sweat under his armour, before lowering his head towards Krason. Inside, he felt a slight hesitation of doing the other part of this ‘mission’ that the Holy King was putting onto his shoulders, however, going against the word of Krason would be questioning the words of one of the gods that created this world. Besides, his loyalty to Krason and his rule burned stronger than his fear of Oprass and what she may do, if he was to lay his hands on her daughter.

  “I shall see if I can find her and bring her back, your Holiness, however, I do not promise that I will be able to.” Krason nodded, looking away. “Right. You may move out now.” He turned his back towards Harcone again, looking out the window.

  “Right. Farewell your Holiness.” Harcone straightened out, before turning away and walking back out of the room, the gates behind him closing with a heavy thud, leaving Krason alone in it once more. As the Holy King gazed out at the city beyond the windows of his office, he let out a heavy sigh, his gaze showing slight hints of concern.

  “Something tells me that big changes are coming to the world. First Arabor vanishes from the seal of the Deities and now the beast created by the Owl Empress has been killed. Whatever is happening around the South, is sure to come to the rest of the world and affect it as well.”

  Krason commented in his mind, before turning around and walking back up the staircase that led up to his desk. His gaze fell onto a large mural behind him, depicting Krason next to a woman and two young boys standing in front of them. His shining eyes inside his helmet flickered a bit. “Herrah, I wish you were still here. You would be able to tell me whether I should be worried or not.”

  Two days later.

  Southern part of the world.

  The Abyssal Woods – three kilometers away from Ordial.

  I dashed forward towards a large Black direwolf, leaping into the air and creating orbs of venom in the air around me, before sending a barrage of venomous bullets down towards the wolf, covering a large area. The monster howled, dodging a portion of the barrage, before the rest of it successfully crashed upon it — causing it to back up a bit, as the venom bullets melted and seeped into its body, hissing gently.

  I landed back down onto the ground, before taking in a deep breath and after spinning around, used some nearby shadows to launch a couple of spinning saw blades at the wolf, which the monster first tried to dodge, however thanks to the paralysing nature of my venom, it failed to move and instead tripped forward, before the saws completely sliced it apart.

  “Phew—” I wiped my forehead. “Not an easy hunt, that’s for sure.”

  “A monster so pathetic would never be a challenge for my fiancé.” A softer, female voice spoke out from behind me. I let out a heavy exhale, placing my hands onto my hips as I flipped around to look at Olivenite, who was sitting on a large boulder behind me, her arms crossed while her facial expression was an unimpressed, even bored one.

  “Can you drop the fiancé thing? I told you I need time to think about it.” I said with a slightly sour tone, however the woman simply shrugged and looked away. “I abide by the fate set for me – Just because I’m waiting for your answer, doesn’t mean I’m going to throw away my hope for it to happen.”

  I simply sighed in response. “Whatever. Can you at least make yourself useful and gather the tails of the other direwolves?” I asked as I turned to walk over to the big pack leader I had just killed. Olivenite exhaled rather heavily, before hopping off of her seat and walking over to the spread out corpses of the small fry direwolves, adjusting her glasses a bit.

  I approached the sliced apart body of the large, black direwolf before kneeling down and lifting its head slightly up. I was after direwolf fangs this time around, since apparently they could be used for forging some rather useful gear – especially one with strong piercing properties, since the fangs were so hard and light.

  Grabbing the fangs of the large direwolf, one by one I ripped them out of the jaws of it, dropping them into my bag after cleaning off the remnants of blood on them. From the giant direwolf alone I managed to gather around twenty eight fangs. “This pack should have all the two hundred fangs we need.” I thought, looking over at Olivenite, who was slowly gathering the fangs of the other direwolves, clearly not very amused by the task, however still doing it.

  “It’s been two days and yet, I still don’t understand her…”

  Two days earlier..

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  “Owl Empress? Who is that?” I asked her after she introduced herself. The short woman exhaled rather heavily, looking at me with a bored and rather unimpressed gaze. “Were you born yesterday or something? How can you not know who my mother is? She’s basically a god.”

  Well technically I did only reincarnate in this world a month ago… So I am very much not familiar with the major figures of this world – discounting the Primal Dragons that Arabor had told me about. The only thing I can gather from her name and title alone is that her mother is some kind of royalty - so definitely at a minimum an important figure.

  “Do you care to explain?” I asked, raising an eyebrow before crossing my arms. Olivenite sighed rather heavily, before turning away. “My Mother is the shadow ruler of Sertalia.”

  “Sertalia? Must be a kingdom of sorts. But– A Shadow ruler?” I tilted my head to the side a bit. “Shadow ruler? Is she not the one the public recognises?”

  “Nope. The masses know and acknowledge a royal family of Elves as the rulers of Sertalia, while my mother stays in the shadows as the true queen of it. Most of the time, she isn’t even present in Sertalia, instead, sitting up in her oh so majestic kingdom in the sky!” She explained, her tone turning quite sarcastic at the end – which might have meant that she harboured some level of distaste towards her Mother.

  “Would make sense… From what I understand so far, her mother locked her in a seal and then created a monster to guard it. A sort of princess in a tower type of scenario.” I commented in my mind, before exhaling and looking at her again. “Okay, that aside – what is this whole future spouse business? I don’t remember agreeing to marry anyone.”

  She looked at me confused, dumbfounded even, before letting out a heavy sigh. “It seems that the one worthy of me is a buffoon.”

  “Now that’s just rude—”

  “Listen up, I’ll only explain once.” She cut me off, lifting her finger up towards me, before clearing her throat a bit. “In short, my mother sealed me inside a cave on the southernmost border, with the intention of protecting me. Whoever, she didn’t want me to be sealed forever, so created a simple rule — whoever was able to slay the monster that she created to guard the seal, would be recognised as worthy of taking my hand in marriage.” She turned her back against me, crossing her arms around her stomach.

  “However, for who knows how long, no one was strong enough to slay the beast. My mother had purposely created it to have a body with impenetrable and nearly limitless levels of magical energy, thanks to its ability to absorb magical energy from the area around it. No mortal could ever hope to slay a monster like that.” Her entire body shivered. Suddenly, her mood and tone shifted, which forced me to drop my annoyed expression for a more somber one.

  Something told me that I was about to hear something depressing.

  “I spent god knows how long, just waiting. In a constant state of stasis – my body ageing so slowly that it was physically painful and mentally draining. I was forced to my own thoughts, just asking why this was necessary, over and over, and over again. At some point, I stopped hoping for someone to free me, because I thought it would never happen. The rule my mother had set became fate and then that fate became a curse, used to create a binding on my very life.”

  I heard a sniffle escape her.

  I didn’t know how to respond. This was the second individual I’ve met that has been sealed away for a long time, only in Arabor's case, he was a lot more calm, collected and mature – most likely because not only is he more mature than Olivenite, but also because unlike her, his sealing came because of his rampaging.

  Then, as I was lost in thought for a moment, she suddenly clung to me, burying her face into my chest which caught me off guard, causing me to stumble back a bit. I looked down at her, confused, while she looked up into my eyes, her teary eyes looking into mine. “Thankfully, you came and were able to slay the beast. I don’t care what you are or who you are, you saved me after years of suffering in the seal and I won’t just move on and ignore my mothers rule. I will take you as my partner!”

  This is moving way too fast—

  It feels like I am going to shortcircuit. I didn’t have a girlfriend in my last life, but I wasn’t so disassociated from people that I would become flustered at the slightest touch of a woman, so I wasn’t sure what on earth I was supposed to do here.

  After a bit of pondering, I exhaled.

  I placed my hands onto her shoulders and pushed her off of me before coughing a bit - clearing my throat. “And what if I don’t want to?” I was curious. I wasn’t sure what kind of answer I wanted to give her.

  “Then… Then I’ll rampage around! I didn’t spend all that time waiting for nothing!” She exclaimed, however due to her rather innocent appearance and short stature, it was hard to take her threat seriously. But, when I noticed her beginning to leak a bit of her magical energy, I immediately felt a sudden instinct of panic.

  “H-Hold on now! Don’t be so drastic, I was being hypothetical!”

  Thankfully, my quick thinking seemed to have worked, as the magical energy leakage disappeared and her facial expression turned into a joyous one – she was like a light switch, constantly flicking between moods and emotions on the fly, it was almost scary.

  “Then, will you accept me?” She was basically brimming with a shining joy, like a small star had landed in front of me. I shed a slight sweat – unsure how I was supposed to respond to her. I didn’t want to accept the whole marriage thing just yet, as it felt too sudden, but I didn’t want to reject her either. Perhaps I should tell her that I don’t know yet and just ask her to give me time to think?

  That would be ideal.

  Though, with how fast she swings between the way she acts… I can imagine that going too well. It was a tough decision to make. I needed to choose my words carefully, otherwise the world can kiss goodbye to this part of it. That slight leak of her magical energy was already far, far more powerful than anything I had seen so far — apart from Arabor. It was clear she was insanely powerful – most likely because her mother, by her own words, was basically a god.

  “..Can I think about it? It’s rather sudden to ask someone you just met to marry you, simply because a destiny created by your mother dictates that to happen.” I explained, before taking in a deep breath and rubbing the back of my neck. “Is that alright? Can I take my time to think about it?”

  Olivenite looked at me with rather large eyes, before scratching her chin – thinking about it for a moment, before exhaling and smiling rather gently, placing her hands in front of her. “I can work with that. If you need time to think, I’ll allow it. Take as long as you want to think about it – I understand it can seem rather sudden, but do note that…” She suddenly leaned in close to my face, forcing me to move back a bit. Her eyes sharpened.

  “I will stay by your side and ensure you fall in love with me and take my hand in marriage.”

  I laughed nervously in response.

  “Obessive woman… Definitely don’t know how to feel about the fact that this may become my first ever relationship.”

  After that, she stuck by my side. We decided that we’d call her something else other than Olivenite, since I feared that someone might recognise her as the daughter of the Owl Empress, who is allegedly a god in this world as well as I helped her form a pair of glasses, since she complained about her vision not being great beyond a certain distance.

  I decided on the name ‘Avy’ for her — not for any particular reason, other than it being a nice and short name that was also easy to remember. After that, I helped her fill out the Adventuring Guilds form to sign her up as well as registered her as a ‘party’ member for me, though, we didn’t create an official party, as apparently that could only be done in a city known as Yiinao – where the main Adventuring Guilds branch is located.

  I also took the time to clear up any ideas the other adventurers and the guilds staff may have had about us, explaining that she was simply an old acquaintance to try and cover up her true identity. Basically, the Ordial Adventuring guild now knows her as Avy, a childhood friend of mine from an unnamed village.

  Present.

  I walked over to her, crossing my arms. “Done yet?” I asked with a stern voice. She looked up at me with her glasses shining lightly, before she adjusted them slightly and stood up, handing me a pouch that was very clearly filled to the brim with fangs from the direwolves.

  “Is this enough?”

  I took the pouch, opening it up, before activating ‘Enlightened’.

  Direwolf Fangs (x218)

  “Yeah, this is more than enough.” I responded, sliding the pouch into my bag. She stretched out before smiling. “Thank the dragons, I was already getting tired from all this quest. Hey, hey, can we go grab some delicious food now? That one place was absolutely divine yesterday.”

  I sighed. “Yeah, yeah – we’ll head over right away. First, we have to go to hand in these fangs at the guild.” She didn’t say anything in response and simply began waltzing back towards Ordial, humming happily, while I just rolled my eyes and a moment later, moved after her. I have to say, after well over a month of adventuring by myself, having a partner who is here for the long run felt weird.

  After we returned to Ordial, we immediately handed in the fangs – getting 40 Silver coins for them. Then, me and Avy b-rolled for the ‘Grey Apple’ – a wonderful establishment run by a family, who partake expertise in cooking. It was essentially a restaurant and a rather popular one, thanks to its rather cheap prices and the food was fantastic.

  Even better than the food I usually eat at the inn I — or I suppose, me and Avy now — stay at. When we arrived at the restaurant, we quickly sat down at a table outside before being approached by one of the sons of the family, who took our order – which for Avy was a whole large portion of something known as direrabbit meat plate, which contained a whole bunch of meat, which, knowing that she’s the daughter of someone literally called ‘The Owl Empress’ and seeing her owl features — made perfect sense, considering owls are carnivores.

  I just ordered a simple soup dish – which I enjoyed.

  I have always been attracted towards more simple dishes, rather than complex ones.

  I just found them a lot more delicious than ones stuffed to the brim with all sorts of ingredients and prepared in god knows how many complicated steps. We didn’t wait all that long before the food we had ordered was served to us. After paying for it, the two of us dug in, with Avy eating like a barbarian, which completely contradicted her innocent and dare I say, professional appearance.

  However, she seemed to enjoy it, so I guess it didn’t really matter how she ate.

  Plus, the family running the place seemingly didn’t mind it, so who was I to speak out against it? Manners are important, but it wasn’t like we were eating at some noble's mansion or something. This was the street where commoners moved around. Who really cared about how someone ate?

  As I peacefully tugged away at the soup, ‘Enlightened’ went off.

  I quickly raised my arm up, catching a rogue bone that came flying my way from Avy, who had just finished devouring the entire meat plate — which included the bones that were still inside some of the meat, which she, just like yesterday, coughed back out and sent it basically flying at me. If not for ‘Enlightened’ I would have probably been hit in the face both times.

  After finishing my own meal, we thanked the family and moved on.

  “Hey, hey – can we go somewhere fun? I want to have some fun.” She laughed gently like a child, her smile brimming brightly. I exhaled lightly, resting my arms onto my hips, before looking at her. “And what would you constitute as ‘fun’?”

  She thought about it for a moment.

  Then, she smiled even more brightly. “How about we find someplace with really strong monsters?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Then what about some strong adventurers—”

  “No.”

  She pouted lightly, before crossing her arms and looking away. “Boring.” I sighed. She sometimes would act like a little child in these two days that we’ve spent together and every time, it has made me rather irritated each time – as it usually resulted in unwanted attention from the people around being drawn to us.

  “Can you think of something else fun to do that doesn’t involve fighting?” I asked, eyeing her. She looked up, closing her eyes and thinking for a bit, before seemingly coming up with an idea.

  “How about—” However, before she could tell me, a loud, ear piercing roar came from the sky. Immediately, I flipped my look up towards the sky, as did everyone else. A large white dragon-like creature flew above Ordial, gliding over to the mansion where the duke of Ordial resided. On top of the creature, I managed to spot a heavily armoured man sitting — most likely the rider of the creature. Then, my attention fell onto the people around that were gossiping.

  “Isn’t that a gryff of the Holy Night Order?”

  “Not only that, it had the emblem of the Dragons on it…”

  “Could it be a high ranking member?”

  “What could they be here in Ordial for?”

  “Holy Night Order? That’s a new thing. Haven’t heard of that before.” I commented, before looking back towards the Dukes mansion. Something, I don’t know what, gave me a bad feeling about this. Avy looked a bit nervous, shedding a sweat as she narrowed her eyes on the Dukes mansion, where the gryff and its rider had flown to.