Foreword: The messages written in bold letters are supposedly written in paper ok! Im getting tired of writing it again and again so keep that in mind. And sorry for the slow releases guys I don't really have much free time writing because of school and all. Without further ado, I present to you another chapter of AWT.... enjoy reading :)

All members of the makeshift tent village gathered behind the warehouse, giving us words of farewell.

[Good luck in your journey and be safe little ones!]

I couldn’t understand their words but I think they’re wishing us good luck on our journey.

Before we could start our adventure, the leader of the group hurriedly walked in front of us, urging us to wear some handcrafted necklaces made out of wood. It seems that these are charms especially made for travelers, wishing them good luck.

I let out a wry smile after seeing the current appearance of Mr. Leader.

The buffed up tranquilzer gun hung on his back making him look more like a hunter instead of a farmer.

That’s right, I gave him the gun as it could be more useful for them. I taught him how to maintain and operate the tranquilizer gun. Furthermore the fact that he’s a farmer, means that he can fully utilize that weapon using his vast knowledge about plants, particularly poisonous ones.

Princess waved them goodbye, replying with incomprehensible words that made the children smile.

The knight flashed a refreshing smile that made the pubescent females from the group scream in joy.

Well at least he has a notable skill and that is wooing the ladies.

By the way we switched the clothes of the whacko pair with the villager’s. Transforming their looks from an eye-catching royalty to a common villager.

Nodding my head at them, as to affirm that everything was set, we started our journey at last.

Walking in the direction opposite of Sjogren we pushed deeper through the forest, walking through the straight path that was previously used by the robed priests.

Do you really know the way?

I questioned her after a while as I couldn’t stay composed.

Of course I remember the way we’ve gone through before…

But then I couldn’t stop worrying here. Giving a teenage girl the role of the lead isn’t really the best thing to do. The uneasiness inside me just wouldn’t disappear no matter what I do.

To take my mind off those things I started to read books for Advanced level magic taken out from my backpack.

You have successfully learned Advanced Conjuration Magic: Summon owl sentry

You have successfully learned Advanced Alteration Magic: Bestow Magical Armor

The knight and the princess took the lead, guiding the way as I follow suit.

After walking for 15 minutes we eventually encountered a new type of monster.

I took out the bestiary that I’ve acquired from the shrine and searched the pages about the monster right in front of us.

Trolls - large, brutish and dumb creatures that resembles a disproportionately giant human. Often these creatures have exaggerated facial structures, such as jutting lower jaws and protruding brows, similar to the stereotypical image of a Neanderthal. Primary weapons are large clubs, maces and other blunt weapons.

Kind of similar to orcs but they’re way too big compared to those bastards.

The princess took the initiative of pressing the offensive as she began to charge towards the troll without any hint of hesitation.

Taking control of the fight, she easily dodged and parried the attacks of the troll using her rust covered sword.

The troll’s attacks weren’t really that special, swinging its club in a slow manner that makes it easy to dodge. But the thing was its hideous appearance, the princess didn’t even flinch after fighting with it in close proximity.

Meanwhile...The knight just stood there cheering the princess by saying words of encouragement.

Ughh...

I hugged my head in disappointment after witnessing this comic act one again. Just watching this scene makes me dizzy for some reason.

I eventually grew tired of this routine.

Ignoring their ridiculous act of reverse princess and knight, I continued reading books to occupy myself while casting the newly learned Advanced Conjuration magic Summon Owl sentry.

An Owl shaped familiar flew high above me. Giving me a bird’s eye view of the surrounding area while continuing to learn magic from the books.

You have successfully learned Advanced Destruction Magic: Sonic blades

You have successfully learned Advanced Alteration Magic: Quagmire

You have successfully learned Advanced Alteration Magic: Telekinesis

So ESP powers are categorized as Alteration magic huh… Well it makes sense…

Immersing myself with studying magic, they continued on fighting monsters we encountered with only the princess doing all the work.

I occasionally provided support by casting and the newly learned .

After killing their 20th monster I inquired about something by showing a message written on a piece of paper in front of the person in question.

What level are you now princess?

She tilted her head in confusion after reading the contents of the paper.

Ignoring her expression I continued on writing messages on the pieces of paper.

Don’t you get experience after killing monsters? And those windows that pops out every time you level up?

Her face contorted into deeper confusion as she narrowed her eyes into slits with her eyebrows furrowed.

…….

And after pondering for a while, her eyes widened as if realizing something.

She then grabbed the pen and notepad from my hand and began to write her reply.

Do you mean our current status?

Uh huh..?

Unable to understand her answer, I gave her a vague reply while slightly nodding my head.

We wouldn’t know unless we go to an adventurer’s guild and avail the service of status update. The religious shrines can also perform status update but it’s exclusive for soldiers only and not for the ordinary people.

Status huh … now that I’ve thought of it I only know my level and not the status...

But then something is weird.. So they don’t have the pop out signs? Well I can at least assume for now that this RPG like system are only exclusive for summoned heroes...

As we continued walking straight through the forest, the trees eventually cleared up. Changing the scenery into a land littered with stones and bushes, similar to the area that surrounded Sjogren, a vast barren wasteland.

The sun’s blinding radiance could be seen clearly as the canopy of the trees disappeared.

Walking slowly full of vigilance, we eventually found a circular platform made out of stone at the middle of the wasteland.

A huge magic circle with sophisticated design and symbols was engraved on the whole platform.

A waypoint? Well it looks like one.

It was described on a book about alteration magic since teleportation is categorized as an alteration magic.

I hurriedly opened my back pack, bringing out the book in the process.

Let’s see here …

Waypoints serves as save points for adventurers as they can instantaneously teleport on these circular platforms by invoking the spell written on a scroll of paper.

Each individual waypoints have different magical arrays and are changed regularly as to avoid the misuse of teleportation scrolls. Waypoint teleportation scrolls can only be bought from merchants permitted by the government that owns it.

So it’s really a waypoint used for teleportation huh. This could be useful if it was operational…

Thus, I decided to fix it by any means necessary as it can be used as an emergency countermeasure for dangerous situations that we may possibly encounter in the future.

I retraced the magical array by invoking the advanced destruction magic: Sonic blade. Using the high pressured wind as a chisel, I’ve successfully inscribed a custom made magical circle, which I previously created when I was studying magic in Sjogren, on the surface of the circular platform.

Following that, I injected an enormous amount of mana on the magic circle for it to start functioning.

Work work work pleaseeeee...

The circle began to emit a faint bluish light after the continuous administration of mana.

“Wow!”

Princess clapped her hand in amazement after witnessing something new.

While the knight ,seemingly curious of the waypoint, began to inspect the platform from different angles.

Ignoring their actions I looked up in the sky and noticed that the sun was about to set.

With that, we decided to halt our journey and began to set camp.

Makeshift tents made out of pieces of cloth woven together with thick branches of wood that served as the foundation.

I used Novice Destruction Magic flames on a pile of wood to create a bonfire.

We then cooperated in making dinner by cooking the preserved meats of orcs from our luggages. We tried cooking the trolls’ meat but it tasted so bad that the knight vomitted out all of the food he ate after just a single bite.

After filling our tummies with orcish meat we prepared the sleeping bags made out of cloth stuffed with layers of warm and soft wool that shielded us from the coldness of the night.

But before that, I called the princess as its time to learn the verbal language.

The knight not giving a thing about the present location, slept soundly … maybe he got too tired watching?

Well... it’s not really teaching since I only instructed her to pronounce every possible syllable that I could think of. Incorporating those syllables into words, I successfully grasped the language bit by bit. It’s relatively easy compared to when I was studying the written language. Not having a single clue about it gave me a serious headache back then.

“Ehrm…ehrm”

I cleared my throat preparing to speak my first words in front of the princess.

“What is your name again?”

Caught off guard by the words that I have just said, the princess stared at me wide eyed with her mouth agape.

“Sorry I tend to forget names really easily as my mind constantly frees up space for more important information…”

I hurriedly interjected my reason, feigning ignorance from the fact that I categorized her name as unimportant.

The Princess’ face soon contorted in displeasure after realizing the reasons behind my actions.

“It’s Catherine… Ca-the-ri-ne!”

Catherine shouted her words with her face beet red full of anger.

I reflexively averted my gaze from the ill-tempered princess that I unknowingly set my sights on the knight that was sleeping soundly like a baby.

Noticing my actions she pressed even further at me, pointing her finger at the sleeping knight.

“And his name is Geraint! Ge-ra-i-nt!”

“Alright alright I get it sheesh!”

I nervously backed away from the princess as her face got too near to me.

People may see me as a mature individual, but I’m not really used to girls. I lived in isolation from the whole world as I was doing my best on conducting researches, not really giving any importance to my social needs.

After quarreling for about half an hour we decided to hit the sack since going on about this was nothing but a waste of time.

The next day passed by quickly since there seems to be no monsters in this part of the region, letting us journey through the land without much interference.

We continued travelling through the waste land and eventually reached the far ends of this region.

A wide mountain range stood before us after walking nonstop for a full 5 hours.

Is it a dead end?

The two continued walking straight not minding my presence as if they’re too focused on the job assigned to them.

As we moved closer towards the base of the mountain, a path appearing to be drilled through the large mass of rock soon entered my sight, we then proceeded through the cave like entrance.

Rows of stalactites adorned the ceiling while the floor of the cave was littered with preforming stalagmites, signifying the passage of time inside the manmade cave.

Then after walking for a while, something that bugged me since beginning of our journey, suddenly crossed my mind.

“Ughm… so why exactly are the both of you here in this part Aegoria? Aren’t you supposed to be at a palace seeping tea or something”

Catherine abruptly ceased her steps.

Getting too immersed with the scenery inside the cave, I unknowingly passed her as I continued walking.

I halted my steps and turned back to see the face of the princess.

Stream of tears flowing down her flushed cheeks. Clenching her fist in anger with her shoulders trembling. Geraint worriedly waved both his hands in front of Catherine, trying to calm her down in the process.

The overflowing emotions that she kept deep inside her burst out after I said that line.

Eh? Did I say something terrible just now?

She then inhaled and exhaled as to relax her breathing and wiped off the tears that flooded her beautiful face with the sleeve of her clothes.

Her lips previously trembling started to open and close as she began to tell her story.

Long story short…

The royal palace of alteria was currently at a turmoil as the king of old age was too weak to properly govern his kingdom. Two opposing factions fought for the throne, the faction of the late queen and the faction of the only concubine of the king. The late queen’s faction suffered a great blow after the queen herself died from an unknown disease. Following that the faction of the concubine began conducting conspiracies and eventually succeeded in the banishing of all the members of the opposing faction.

A slight prick in my chest can be felt as I imagined the situation they’ve gone through till now.

Forcibly exiled from her very home, separated from her friends and loved ones with only the cowardly knight by her side.

Delving in deeper with this matter is inappropriate since Its really not my business.

But then she is a royalty of the Kingdom of Alteria, if I can help her usurp the throne maybe I can have unlimited access to their archives that contained all the information about the stone of Qasnir.

It is a possibility but then deciding recklessly with important things like this will end up with bad results so let’s just watch from the sidelines for now. Letting the events flow naturally without interfering too much.

Silence enveloped out group as we continued our travel without us interacting in any way.

After passing through the cave, a grass field that spanned through the horizon came into our vision as the fresh wind blew against our faces.

But then something is unusual from this almost perfect scenery and that is the ruins of a once prosperous city that lied at the middle of the greenery.

So this is Estad huh…

We proceeded to the ruins and began to inspect the premises of Estad.

It’s the exact opposite of Sjogren as destruction littered the surrounding area. Almost all of the houses were burned into a black charred color with smoke still coming from it.

Noticing that the sun is about to set once again, we decided to halt our journey and began to set up camp once again.

An awkward atmosphere floated between us three as we continued to ignore each other’s presences.

In order to escape from this suffocating environment, I decided to take a walk around …. Hoping that the unpleasant atmosphere would soon die down.

Destruction, destruction and destruction was the only thing that I could see after circling once through Estad and I soon became bored of it.

Taking my time on walking, I eventually saw the smoke coming from the bonfire that I previously made.

But then something unexpected happened when I returned to the camp. I couldn’t seem to find the two no matter where I look.

Where are they?

Anxiety invaded my mind as I imagined what might happened to Catherine and Geraint during my absence.

“Catherine! Geraint! Where are you guys?”

I shouted with all my might hoping that they might hear it and reply back, but it was all for naught as dead silence re-enveloped the whole surroundings.

Hoping to find the pair I casted the alteration magic and was surprised with what I’m currently witnessing.

Multiple signals from life forms with numbers of about 10 surrounded the camp.

“What the he…”

A numbing pain can be felt from my neck as my consciousness slowly faded away.