Chapter 3: The Royal Children

“Just cut through the bushes over there! No, the ones to the right!”

Maxim tried to direct the driver towards what he believed was the right direction, which could easily be tracked from the soft, grassy ground having car tracks imprinted from their previous journey towards the destroyed village.

The road was still bumpy, making the Humvee quite an uncomfortable ride. Coupled with the speed that they were going at, it was a wonder that they didn’t already crash.

Maxim turned around to look at the knight on the ground, the medic sitting in the back constantly putting pressure on the injured area. He had wrapped a tourniquet around his upper leg to prevent more blood loss, but during the battle he was on the ground for a solid 10 minutes, bleeding out.

“Is he gonna be okay?”

The medic looked up towards him, still keeping the pressure on the wound

“He’ll be fine as long as we close it up. Even if we don’t he’ll still make it but I think someone back in Bragg probably knows how to fix this.”

Maxim nodded

“Alright. Also did anyone notice any buildings besides our military buildings? Civilians?”

“If they have then it hasn’t been reported as of yet”

The humvee turned again as it started to come down the small hill towards the river that had replaced the main road.

The princess that was riding with them had been quiet the whole time, looking at her unconscious brother.

Wait...why is a princess fighting like a common foot soldier in the first place? And if that’s her brother, then....

She tore her gaze away from her brother, once again facing Maxim. Her blonde hair was dishevelled, probably from wearing the helmet for so long. There were so many questions running through Maxim’s mind, but he decided that this wasn’t the best time to ask.

Maxim glanced at her for a moment,

Platinum blonde hair

Blue eyes

Beautiful face.

This really did seem like they were summoned into a fairytale. She really was the epitome of a classic princess.

“Sir Maxim, why can your men not speak the common tongue like you?”

Maxim was pulled out from his thoughts as she asked the question

….How do I answer this when I don’t know myself?

“I’ll be honest princess, I...don’t know. I’m just like my men, but I’m the only one who can speak a language that I’ve never learned before.”

The princess looked at him incredulously. It was more than abnormal that someone could speak a language that they had never attempted to learn.

“Can I ask you to call me princess Elenoir instead of princess? Every time someone says princess they are usually referring to my elder sister.”

“...alright Elenoir, well we’ll be arriving soo-”

Maxim stopped talking as he suddenly spotted a building that he hadn’t noticed before out of the corner of his eye. The white paint and large windows reflected brightly in the sunlight. The image of a beer glass shone clearly with the words MIKES PUB printed above.

….you know what? I think we’ll deal with that after we deal with this.

The humvee entered the opening of the wall that surrounded New Fort Bragg. Men dressed in the standard green combat uniform were surrounding the sides of the entrance with M4’s on hand.

“Simon or James probably put them there, they have a report to give me anyways. C’mon, let’s get him out of here”

The humvee parked on the entrance as the medic and drivers got out to unload the man.

Curious soldiers watched from a distance as the stretcher was taken out. Many were surprised to see the armored individual hauled out of the car.

“Sergeant Maxim!”

Maxim looked towards the group of curious soldiers to see corporal James jogging towards him, waving his hand. In his other hand held a few sheets of paper, probably the names of the people who were here. He slowed down a bit after seeing the disheveled look they had.

“Uh sir? I thought you guys were just going on recon?”

Maxim waved his hand dismissively

“ That was BEFORE we saw a village getting burned down by what were apparently goblins. Little critters were killing people left and right so we put an end to that whole thing. Apparently this guy that’s on the stretcher is a prince so we REALLY can’t fuck up.”

James shuffled through the sheets of paper on his hand, Maxim stepped next to him and glanced at them. There were names of people, yes, but there were also pictures of the bases' various facilities. It looked like the mess hall and the hospital among other things were all here. There were still numerous barracks after the summoning, the administrative facility and communications facilities were also there.

James glanced at Maxim

“Sir, we’ve done a headcount here. There are 1982 personnel on this base, so around two thousand. They are mostly from the 82nd but there are some others as well.”

Maxim put his hands up to stop James

“Get the others that are overseeing this as well as Ben and Simon and head to the administrative building, we all need to be on the same footing. Do we have any army surgeons here?”

James looked down at the papers again, flipping through them until tapped his index finger on one of the names.

“ Albert Jaheed. He immigrated to the U.S and joined the military a few years ago. He worked as a head surgeon in Syria, but immigrated to the U.S after things got dicey. It’s on record but there’s no way to prove that it’s accurate since the official documents can’t be verified. He’s listed as a colonel but was put in the medic section.”

Maxim looked at the person’s profile. James and Simon had gone into the administrative building and brought out the information POI’s (people of interest/points of interest) which in this case targeted people with beneficial skills.

“I don’t care about verification at this point, send him to the hospital with the other medics. Also...please make sure the prince guy doesn’t die”

James nodded, before looking beside Maxim and smirking

“Understood. I’ll tell the other guys to come into the meeting room. In the meantime, should entertain your lady friend there sir”

James walked off as Maxim furrowed his brows.

Lady friend? What the hell does he mean?

He felt a tug on his arm as he came face to face with princess Elenoir, who had gotten off of the humvee and had looked around at the hustling men and buildings in wonder.

“Sir Maxim, I’ve never seen anything like this in my entire life! What are these buildings made of!? What were those magical weapons and carriages? Who are you people?”

Yeah, this was definitely a bad idea

“Err..unfortunately we are in a circumstance in which we cannot tell you. I can tell you that your brother will be fine and will probably wake up in a few minutes, you’re going to have to explain this to him. Now onto something more important, would you mind answering a few questions?”

Princess Elenoir tilted her head, metal armor clinking

“Only if it doesn’t involve any military or kingdom secrets, I would be labelled a traitor if I exposed any of those”

Maxim nodded understandingly. It makes sense since nobody is technically allowed to leak state secrets, especially someone of her standing.

“Alright, well my first question is why are you a soldier? Did the ruler really need soldiers so badly that they sacrificed their own children into the army as well?”

She shook her head

“I am the third princess of the kingdom, and I therefore get less attention from the king with less authority. As a princess, it is my duty to participate in shaping our kingdom so I joined the army by choice. The king had made sure I didn’t go into any dangerous battlefield and stayed behind to kill pests. However, as you know, these pests almost killed me before you and your men showed up.”

That makes sense…. Wait, battlefield?

“Wait, are you guys at war right now?”

She stared at him for a solid minute with shock displayed by her facial features quite obviously.

“This whole world has been at war for the past two hundred years! You know, the war to end all wars!? God's war on mortals?! The gods have been sending down champion armies to fight against each other, the gods and goddess’s of good and evil clashing on this planet. We are in the middle of it, and we’re holding both sides back to keep our kingdom safe. How do you not know of this!?”

Oh boy….this is worse than I thought

Maxim stood up and clapped his hands

“Alright, question time is over! Let’s go see if your brother has woken up yet”

Maxim jogged off towards the hospital building with princess Elenoir trailing behind them, now a bit more cautious and suspicious towards the people that populated this base.

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“Sergeant, do you have healing mages on standby all the time? That must be quite expensive”

They were now strolling around in the interior of the hospital. It was still quite messy from the sudden teleportation, no doubt many doctors and nurses have found themselves confused and alarmed when the hospital was transported into another world, which probably sent them into mass panic.

The hospital wasn’t that big, and it rarely did surgery at all so it was severely lacking staff in that department. They primarily dealt with diseases among other things so they had a large stock of medicine. Primarily, these were anti-biotics.

Mages? Is that what they call doctors here or…

“Uhh princess Elenoir, we don’t have mages. Only doctors”

“What!? How do you heal people without magic? There is only one royal doctor who helps us with serious problems but that’s it!”

“Well, OUR doctors are giving your brother stitches right now…”

Wait, this sounds bad. If you’ve never seen it then it would be a ridiculous concept

“STITCHES? They’re stitching him up like a doll!?”

“Well, you see-”

They turned into a larger hallway that had many doors to the side. A small sign that said patient ward hung on the ceiling, two soldiers were the only ones in the whole hallway and they were standing guard outside a particular room that had sounds of talking behind them.

One of the soldiers spotted Elenoir heading towards them

He nervously held his hand out in front of him to stop her

“Sorry, you can’t enter until the doctors are done. Even if you are his sister-”

Elenoir ducked underneath the soldier and pushed open the door

“Gawain are you okay! I’m here to stop them, they said they were going to stitch you up. Can you believe that !!!”

The room was silent. The doctors were in mid-motion to give the now sitting upright Gawain a cup of water, while Gawain was staring silently at his sister with his hands still outstretched to take the cup.

“Wha- Gawain why aren’t you struggling more!?”

He shrugged his shoulders as he took a sip of water out of the paper cup

“Uh sis, if you don’t remember I was kind of knocked out from blood loss. I can’t understand what these people are saying but they seem quite nice.”

“But what about the stitches!”

“Oh these?”

Gawain pulled his left pant leg up to show the small scar that it had left, just six stitches across the wound.

Maxim rushed into the room followed by the soldiers

“Princess Elenoir! I told you he would be fine, please tell me you didn’t beat anyone up”

Elenoir looked away, embarrassed, with her face flushed red. Gawain on the other hand looked ecstatic that someone here knew how to speak his language.

“Hahaha that sounds like Elenoir. Hey mister can you tell me what these guys are saying? They kept trying to talk to me but I have no idea what they are saying”

Maxim looked at the two doctors next to Gawain. Maxim knew them to be a married couple that weren’t in the military but had a son in the military. They were accepted as doctors in this hospital and were paid a little less than normal army doctors.

“He’s asking what you guys were trying to tell him, he couldn’t understand you.”

The female doctor talked to him while cleaning up the suturing equipment that they had just used to close up the wounds.

“I was trying to tell him that the stitches will come out in two or three weeks on their own and to not try to remove it himself. Y’know I keep on having to remind myself that we’re in another world.”

The male doctor opened the door for his wife so they could leave, as they were leaving he called out behind him.

“That area will still be numb for a bit since we used anesthesia. It should be fine in an hour or two.”

Maxim repeated what they said to Gawain, who scratched his head

“Well, it is a bit more complicated than how our mages would deal with injuries but I walked away with my life so I’m not complaining”

Maxim didn’t notice before because of Elenoir’s little outburst, but Gawain was hooked onto an IV drip, probably dripping saline solution to make up for the lost blood.

Gawain tapped the IV bag

“This thing is making me feel much better than I usually would after an injury though, those mages patch any skin wound up but I still can’t get out of bed for days.”

Maxim sighed, he had shown enough to them and he was glad they weren’t asking for a weapons demonstration next because that, for now, would have crossed the line by a mile.

“Do you guys have any sort of communication to call for help? Me and my troops temporarily cannot leave this area from the village because we still have many things to do.”

At this, Elenoir pulled out a royal blue colored gem with a golden rim.

“King Morkath”

She said the name before it started glowing a bright blue and dimming again, this continued on for a bit until…

“Elenoir?”

“Yes father, I’m here”

“By the gods we thought you had been taken by those damn goblins! We didn’t even find a body in the village and the villagers that survived said that you and Gawain had been taken away by men in green clothes! We thought they were confusing goblins with people since they had lost so much blood”

Elenoir glanced at Maxim and the other soldiers. She found it incredible that they thought the villagers had confused them with goblins with them being nearly three times the size of an average goblin.

“No father, we were surrounded by goblins but another country's military intervened and killed them. We’re currently in their hospital since Gawain had to get treated for a cut from a goblins knife. They told us that we needed transportation since they currently can’t go very far”

“I’m sitting on a wyvern with the 1st wyvern squad right now, we’ll wait in the village for you! Remember darling, please stay safe a-’

The king was cut off as Elenoir tapped the surface of the crystal again before looking back at Maxim, who was staring intently at the crystal.

Elenoir had seemingly accepted the fact that there were many common things that they haven’t seen before.

“Oh this? This is a communication crystal that’s imbued with mana magic. The different colors from yellow, green, red, and blue allow us to talk at different ranges. Blue allows us to talk to anybody even in another country, but generally only royals have it...actually here”

She stuck her hand that was still holding the Comms(Let’s just call it that) crystal out for Maxim to take, which Maxim shook his head rapidly while making a dismissive motion with his hands.

“No no no, I can’t accept that. If it really is so expensive that only royals can have it then we would never be able to afford it.”

At this, Elenoir gave up and just grabbed his hand and put the crystal on it.

“Take it. Father can get me more crystals anyways and we need a way to communicate. Just think of it as a favor for saving mine and my brothers life”

After more pushing back and forth Maxim finally relented and stuffed the comms crystal in his pocket, sighing

“Well, Gawain you weren’t awake during the whole ride so how about another ride on the humvee, or metal chariot as you guys call it”

“Really! That would be awesome!”

Now that he was close, he could tell that both of them were quite young. They looked about 16 or 17, barely eligible to become a private in the U.S army.

Well, I guess I won’t try to figure out how royalty works

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Maxim straightened his cap and tie of his official non-combat uniform as Simon, James, and Ben did the same.

Ben was having a harder time as he had only been in the army for a shorter period of time than the rest of them, so he kept on retying the tie.

“ARGHH, goddamnit ! Sergeant Maxim, why are we wearing our official uniforms in a known hostile environment again!? I hate wearing these things.”

Maxim pulled his tie up before doing a final checkup.

“Kid, if the queen of England came to inspect us you sure as hell would be wearing this. Same here, we’re meeting a king so we better dress the part. Alright guys let’s go”

They walked outside to the awaiting humvees. The gunners were still there as a precaution in case something came and attacked them mid-transit. The previous LAV was also there, they didn’t need to be refueled since the village had only been a few miles away but they were reloaded with more rounds.

He held the back door open for the princess and prince to enter before sitting shotgun in the lead humvee.

“Alright, let’s go”

At this, the humvee and it’s escorting vehicles left for the village. The driver knew the road much better now, so they were able to quickly get there.

As the humvee drove along the grassy plains, prince Gawain kept on looking outside as he saw the base and trees zip by.

“WOW! Sis, look at how fast this carriage is going!”

“Gawain I was awake the last time, but it’s still amazing nonetheless”

The humvee cut through the trees to reach the village, which they once again returned to. The village’s fire had been put out, either by the king's men or the villagers.

At the center of the village was the king. Besides him stood many knights with goggles where their eye slits were supposed to be, and behind them sat five green and blue reptilian creatures with a pair of wings and two hind legs. Saddles were mounted on each of their backs.

The creatures were staring wearily at the approaching vehicles, not knowing what to make of them.

Maxim could see the soldiers all had swords sheaths on their belt, with a golden emblem on the center of their breastplate.

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King Morkath P.O.V

“My liege, three unknown metal constructs are heading towards us!”

The Wyvern squad captain spotted the humvees and LAV speeding village plains as soon as they had cleared the forest.

The king squinted at the fast approaching vehicles, trying to figure out what they were. In all his years as king, he had never seen such a thing.

“Sir, do we get the wyverns to torch them? They are closing in extremely quickly”

The king held his hand up

“I am just as astonished as you captain, but my daughter had said that an foreign army had helped her. Stay on alert but don’t attack them, unless our message got intercepted by enemies they are most likely that army”

The lead vehicle parked a few meters in front of the wyverns, followed by a similar vehicle and a much larger one.

“Sir! The last construct has a weird mana-cannon on the back, and they have weird looking mana-guns on top of the smaller ones as well!”

“What! I thought they could only be on ships or grounded, how are they carrying it on a vehicle that moves that fast!?”

“I don’t know sir, but if they fired on us we would be in trouble. The other wyverns were out on missions so these young wyverns can at most only stop a mana gun for a short period of time.

The knights held their breaths as the doors of the humvee opened, with the other vehicles following suite.

The king focused his attention on the lead vehicle as a tall man in an impressive green suit stepped out and held the backdoor open, which two individuals stepped out.

“Father!”

Gawain waved towards the king, with Elenoir following closely behind.

The king didn’t say anything as he embraced his daughter and ruffled his son’s head.

“Dad, can you not!?”

“We aren’t five anymore you know!”

King Morkath let them go as he chuckled

“Sorry Sorry, I was just really worried that you two were hurt. You two look fine though, I suppose we have them to thank?”

The king nodded at the man that had opened the door. He was now accompanied by three others dressed the same as him, with the only difference being the patch on their shoulders.

The king held his hand out, which the man in the lead shook with a strong grip.

The man then looked at the prince and princess, but found their mouths to be agape.

“What? Did I do something wrong!? Was I supposed to kneel or something!?”

“ Usually you do but this is the first time I’ve seen the king give someone that’s not a royal a handshake, it’s usually only with other rulers”

“Hahaha, how could I not shake my children's savior's hand! Now, I’ve heard from my daughter about your military's battle prowess, so I have some things I want to discuss with you. I’ll be hosting a royal party tomorrow and I want you and your men to join”

As the king said this, one of the knights handed over a letter with a red seal stamped on the center.

The man accepted it with two hands, as he turned towards his other men. The shortest one gave him a thumbs up.

“Thank you, this is an honor. We will make sure to come”

“Unfortunately, our largest wyvern can only hold three people at a time. We can bring you and another since we cannot spare so many wyverns”

“Actually, we have our own way of flying. We just need someone to guide us there since we don’t have a map yet”

They have a flight squadron as well!? Only strong and well known countries have anything that can fly, how have I never heard of them at all?

The king coughed before motioning to the squad captain, who stepped forwards.

“This is our wyvern squad captain, he’ll be the one guiding you. He’ll arrive tomorrow at dusk to guide you.”

“Understood sir, we’ll be here at the designated time”

“Alright then, kids say your farewells we must be going now”

The prince and princess got onto two of the wyverns before waving back at the soldiers

“We’ll see you at the party sir Maxim!”

And with that the other knights mounted the wyverns who flapped their wings downwards, creating a powerful gust, and flew off towards their kingdom.