Knock. Knock.

King Sartus placed the fountain pen in his hand to the side. “Enter,” he wondered who would be knocking on his office at this sort of time.

The large doors were pushed open by timid hands.

“Dear,” from the gaps in between, Queen Celestia called out.

“Celestia,” King Sartus gave her a warm smile, he stood up from his desk, leaving his paperwork aside for now.

Her gorgeous flaxen hair tied into a braid, eliciting a gentle warmth. The light blue dress she wore and her cute timid voice in his presence. In her hands were a few half-opened letters.

“What brings you here my wife?” Sartus held her hands and pulled her into the room.

“I found something interesting or should I say, unprecedented?” She looked down at the letters.

“There’s no rush, I’ll listen to what you have to say,” Sartus knew that she wouldn’t usually come at this sort of time— unless it was something urgent that needed to be attended to immediately.

They sat on the couch, placed on top of the table in front was a teapot and delicate teacups. King Sartus offered her tea.

She took a sip of the still warm drink. Placing the cup down, she then relaxed her body against him.

“Anything?” he ruffled her hair.

“Nothing, I just miss you, I'd like it to be like this for a while,” she hooked her arm around his and snuggled, she closed her eyes.

“...” Sartus thought perhaps he needed to arrange more alone time together. He had been plenty busy with the current issue piled atop one another. The envoys of Rozel, Prince Herlock and Princess Louise, the new pillar located to the western side of Haital, and the unorthodox mages that had just been acquitted from destroying the inner sect. All of this on top of the usual review of important paperwork.

“Do you know who the founder of the new piece of land is?” Celestia slithered up his neck, whispering into his ears.

“I apologize, I don’t know. I should have probably been more proactive,” His body convulsed. She was being a little too, touchy at the moment. He reaffirmed the need to plan some time off just for the two of them.

“Then how about the person who helped to unravel the Zenixis Organization?”

“The person is related?” Sartus stared into Celestia’s beautiful, iridescent eyes, their noses almost touching each other.

She smiled, moving forward and giving him a light peck on the lips.

“This never gets old,” she laughed after pulling away. She handed the letters she held before to him, “Read these.”

Three letters. One was from the Ministry of Land Management, another was from the Department of National Security, the last was from, Elanoire, the commander of the Magic Artillery Battalion.

Celestia was the secretary of the kingdom, thus it was her duty to filter the letters that came to the king. Most letters never made it past her and there were suddenly three that garnered such importance?

Sartus knew that these letters contained something immensely crucial. He first took out the letter from the Ministry of Land Management and read it.

“This.. this person..” His voice quivered.

“Hm?”

A little shaken, he opened the next letter, glancing though, once he sought after that ‘name’, he then opened the next.

He recalled the conversation he had last night. That last question he asked before he left them.

‘ “Sir Fenrir, may I ask? Who is your grandson?” ‘

‘ “Curtis. My grandson’s name is Curtis Shun.” ‘

“Curtis Sheyl.. This can’t be a coincidence.”

Celestia tilted her head at him who had just made a scrunched face. “I-is there anything wrong?”

He looked at Celestia and smiled weakly, “Nothing, but it’s as you said, unprecedented. I assume I can take this as proof that unorthodox mages can bring many benefits to the nation?”

“It’s hasn’t been confirmed by the department of.. hm?”

“It has,” he interrupted, placing his fingers on her lips, “This the person here is who Sir Fenrir seeks.”

Celestia looked as If she was seeing an egg. “Come again?”

“He’s the reason why the unorthodox mages came here in the first place.”

Celestia nodded, a little stunned, “What do we do about it now? From the second letter, it says that he had been taken away by the— Jesters?”

“What?” he only really touched over the generals without really going too deep into the details. He had missed such an important point?!

“As Sir Aldrich said, they’re handling a wide-scale search operation, didn’t he tell you yesterday?” oh cute she looked when she was right about her point.

“I-I must have forgotten,” he coughed. Fact was, he didn’t pay attention at all to what Aldrich asked him and just gave the green light. Well, even if he didn’t, the operation had already been underway even before permission was given.

“What should we do now?”

He thought about it for a while. “Let’s not let the mages know about this as of the time being. We have no choice but the depend on Aldrich’s command. There had to be another deeper reason as to why he was captured,” he muttered the latter half of his sentence.

“I agree.” she exhaled, embracing him.

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“...” Curtis peered over the edge of the ship. Turning his head to the right, he looked to the large turboprop attached to the side of the ship. Mana being the main power source for the thing. Just how many gold coins would ship would chug each hour if the engine was seriously used?

The ship had two methods of driving it forward. First was by the sails, harnessing the power of the wind. The second was the use these turboprops. It was this ship’s special feature, capable of accelerating their travel through the air up to 4 times the normal speed. Or at least that’s was what Dominic said.

“You alright?” Mikheal leaned against the rail beside Curtis.

“I still don’t get why you needed to bring me on this trip,” Curtis raised his brows, “Couldn’t you just leave me there as is?”

“Dominic said it was for fun, I say it was an accident, no more no less,” Mikhael replied as if talking about last night’s dinner. By the way, Hermit’s culinary skills were amazing.

‘I wonder what Ellis could cook if she had the kitchen here?’

“You lovesick?”

“Huh?”

“I’m asking, are you lovesick? You look exactly like Claudia, pretty much,” he shot Curtis a side-ways glance.

“I-I guess I am,” Curtis lowered his head, his chin touched the top of the rail. He hadn’t been separated from Ellis like this since the day they came to Haital. They had been together as one all this time. “Claudia is lovesick?”

“It happens every time she gets separated from Darwin, common knowledge. This time, they’d be apart for a month, at least.”

“You said half the party is on Darwin’s side right? Who else have I not met?”

“Darwin, that’s it.”

“Huh?”

“Him alone accounts for 50 percent, no, 70 percent of our party’s strength,” Mikheal sighed.

“Wait. Repeat that,”

“Darwin alone accounts for 70 percent of our party’s strength.” His tone was more formal this time.

“You're not joking are you..”

“Not at all. That’s why he’s like half of our party,” Mikhael smiled wryly.

“So why are you not joining him along with the Monarch? Why are you in Haital?”

“That’s a long story— don’t think I can tell you as of the moment, you still aren’t part of our team yet. Hermit and Claudia will judge whether or not you deserve to know after we acces.. Hey wait! Bidon! Stop! That's not your food! Help! Seth! Help!” Mikhael’s fishing rod at the other side of the ship shot into the sky. It was being dragged along by the orca named Bidon.

The Legion party owned three orcas. They were Bidon, Dailies and Wadu. They were the three silhouettes that Aldrich and Ellis saw just as Curtis was being taken away.

With Mike’s being chased around the ship, Curtis shifted his gaze to observed the ‘light’ battle between Dominic and Seth on deck. Seth, totally ignoring Mikhael was the one having the upper hand against Dominic. Seth brandished her dual daggers while Dominic ran around with his claymore.

Curtis then looked back to the sky. Clouds that formed towering white castles, natural sky stream causing its vicinity to glitter. A natural phenomenon where no land could be found.

Noticing something in the distance, he squinted his eyes. It was as if a black tumour in the sky— a swarm? The numerous creatures clustered together to form an ominous shadow in the distance, drawing closer and closer.

‘I should call Hermit shouldn’t I?’