“Betsy, Your Holiness. She’s gone.” replied the guard who resolved the tension from last chapter’s obligatory cliff hanger.

“B-BETSY?!” suddenly shouted Theodore in utter horror. “Use every resource you can muster to search for her, quickly!”

B-Betsy? Who is she, wondered Watanabe. Must be his wife or something judging from the reaction.

“Ah, poor Betsy… What’ll I do without ye…” muttered a dejected Theodore. “Without thine feathers it is as if the light of Brassicus has left me, I am as in the dark as a heathen…”

Feathers? Is his wife some sort of demi-human?

“S-Sir… Do you want to hear the last piece of news?” said the poor guard who had taken on the grueling task of being the messenger.

“Yes, how can it get worse than my dearest duck friend Betsy’s disappearance?” asked Theodore who braced for the worst.

…Betsy’s a duck? What. I don’t get this world, thought Watanabe who braced for the absurd.

“Oleracea is missing too, sir. One of the servants followed her, and saw her entering the Dragon’s Lair.” concluded the guard.

“…I- I need a break.” said Theodore. He slowly rose from his seat. He was too shaken that his shakiness had caused a biological stack overflow causing him to enter a temporary calm state. “You two are free to go, luncheon is cancelled.”

In an opposite reaction to Theodore experiencing his own daughter and beloved pet disappearing at the same day, Watanabe was overjoyed at these events. I was worried when the duck came up, but a missing princess? This sounds like a quest befitting of a hero, the mother of all clichés, a damsel-in-distress!

“Your Holiness!” exclaimed Watanabe rising from his seat. “Despair not, for I am a hero, no, the hero! Saving a princess is an easy task for me!”

Theodore quietly stared at Watanabe before turning back and addressing the guard that had delivered the news to him. “You, go assist them if you’ve got nothing better to do.”

“W-What, Your Holiness I-”

“I was going to send a search party into the cave anyways. Might as well be some volunteering foreigners instead of my men.” said Theodore, who was currently not in a right state of mind. He exited the room without elaborating any further.

Unable to resist the orders of his master, the guard obliged. Since Theodore had left the audience chamber, and Watanabe and Rabanowicz were not official guests anymore, they were escorted out of the palace with the poor guard following them.

Standing in front of the outer gate of the palace, Rabanowicz asked an obvious question. “So… Monsieur, what in the Divine’s hallow name was that just now?” asked Rabanowicz. “You had just saved your head, no need to risk it again! I swear to the Divine, you’re sometimes cowardly as a chicken, sometimes brave as an imbecilic lion… You need some balance.”

“You see… Okay, what the hell did I just do?” asked Watanabe to himself. “I thought that saving a princess could be a great boon, plus the whole ‘Dragon’s Lair’ thing interested me.”

“I get the name, but do you even know what and where a ‘Dragon’s Lair’ is? I certainly have no idea.” replied Rabanowicz.

“If I may interrupt sir and madam.” butted in the guard joining the conversation. “It’s the name of a cave that’s near the capital.”

“So, it’s just a cave then? You want to see a cave?” said Rabanowicz.

“Well, according to rumors and legend, as implied by the name, it is or was the home of a dragon depending on who you ask.” continued the guard.

“See, I knew it was more interesting than that!” exclaimed Watanabe. “Thank you for enlightening us, Mr…?”

“Svyatoslav.” replied the guard.

“Su-wa-e-to-su-ra-bu?” muttered Watanabe. He gave up on pronouncing the name and decided that he’d just refer to him as ‘Mr. Guard’ from now on. Guards are just generic NPCs and background characters anyways; they don’t need a name.

“A dragon… I’ve never seen one, and they’re pretty clearly not real.” said Rabanowicz. “Rumors usually stem from some truth. I wonder why people think there’s a dragon there…” she continued. She slowly warmed up to the idea of adventuring.

“See? You think the idea of a dragon lair is cool too!” said Watanabe with a smug smile. “Teddy seems like a chill dude; he’ll probably forgive us if we can’t find the princess.”

“Right… You win this time, monsieur.” replied Rabanowicz. “Your sudden quests have led to an interesting discovery before, so let’s dally no further and march forwards in our chivalric quest to save a princess!”

Like so, the makeshift party of three began their march out of the city and towards the cave. Thankfully Svyatoslav, who had played around in the wilderness near the cave as a child, was able to act as a guide in the wilderness. The orderly disorder of civilization ended when they exited the walls, being replaced by the disorderly order of nature.

Watanabe found the usual coniferous forests, filled with generally non-hostile wildlife. He was, after having seen many monsters three chapters ago, disappointed in the lack of hostile fauna in this setting.

Travelling just lacks the same sense of adventure when there are no monsters around, thought Watanabe. The author is such a lazy bore, they didn’t even bother to add any. Knowing the author of this setting, that cave is not going to have any dragons either.

With pessimistic thoughts like so, Watanabe and his party marched and marched, for a few hours, ‘till it began getting dark. Thankfully they had managed to reach an open, plain area that was right in front of the cave.

“It’s a bit further than I remember…” commented Svyatoslav.

“We should rest for today, it’s probably not a good idea to enter a cave with such a menacing name while we’re tired.” said Rabanowicz. She took out a fire striker and a piece of flint from her bottomless bag. “Monsieur Watanabe and Svyatoslav, could you get something to burn? My eyes can’t see in this dark.”

Being a military man trained in the ways of setting up camp, Svyatoslav was able to quickly locate dry sticks that were suitable for burning. Watanabe, who was ignorant of anything related to the outdoors, picked up the first sticks that he found. All our hero collected were useless wet sticks that couldn’t burn even with divine intervention.

Throwing away Watanabe’s hard work, Rabanowicz stacked the sticks gathered by Svyatoslav to make a pile of them. She then struck the piece of flint with the fire striker, creating sparks (more exactly, creating hot oxidizing metal particles) that eventually caused the sticks to catch fire.

Having fire to ward away from the cold night and the literal darkness that kept her from seeing properly, Rabanowicz sat down next to Watanabe, handing him a couple sheets of paper along with a lump of graphite.

“What are these, doctor?” asked Watanabe examining the papers. “I recognize the Éirois numbers, but the ones next to them make no sense.”

“Remember how you were supposed to be studying the Lahanezite letters and numbers?” replied Rabanowicz “You’re supposed to be computing and whatnot, yet the last few days have not been conductive to your learning. I prepared this last night to assist your education.”

Right, the plot has been getting in the way. Sorry doctor, heroes are busy like that, thought Watanabe.

Now that he had sat down and gotten a chance to look at Rabanowicz, he noticed that the dark spots under her eyes had gotten worse. She has also looked a bit more tired and irritable than usual today, thought Watanabe. He noticed that she took out a jar, and he recognized it as the weird medicine that had managed to keep him awake all night.

“Doctor, when was the last time you slept?” said Watanabe as he observed Rabanowicz. He was no stranger to sleep deprivation. In the office he used to work it had been the norm.

“The night before you went to the palace.” replied Rabanowicz. “I really wanted to finish that book I borrowed, so I spent all of last night reading it.”

She hasn’t slept for a day, and she doesn’t plan sleeping today?! That can’t be healthy, thought Watanabe. The most I’ve gone for has been a night of foregoing sleep, and at the end of those days I was feeling so terrible that I’d never wish to experience it again.

“Doctor, thank you for the study notes. I’ve slept well in the palace, so I don’t really need sleep right now.” said Watanabe. “But you should really get some good night’s sleep.”

Rabanowicz put down the medicine, staring at Watanabe in surprise. “You know, that’s the kind of advice that I should be giving. Are you looking to steal my job, monsieur?”

“No, but you look dreadful right now.” replied Watanabe. “I can look at these by my own.”

Rabanowicz shook her head in incredulity. “Fine, Doctor Watanabe. I’ll be taking your advice.”

Rabanowicz took out a mattress from her bottomless bag and laid it on the ground near the fire. “Good night, monsieur.” she bid as she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.

Am I going further in the Rabanowicz route? Showing concern for a character is a pretty cliché way to increase your relationship with them, and I did just that! I hope I’m not ruining the harem route I’m going for… Does the harem route even exist though?

…Damn it, damn it, damn it! Why can’t you act like the hero that you’ve trained to become?!

Being beset by confusing feelings that left our hero flustered, our hero decided to bravely and tactically retreat from his emotions by instead focusing on studying. Under the faint light of the fire, and guard of Svyatoslav, Watanabe spent most of the night learning how to write numbers the Lahanezite way.

Waking up, Watanabe was confronted with a scene that he had expected and also not expected. On the opposite side to him was Svyatoslav’s unconscious body, and sitting next to the unconscious man was…

…The ghost-woman?!

On the woman’s arm was a pure gray-and-black duck that had a green tie and a name tag on it. She and the duck were calmly munching on a piece of hardtack that she had just stolen from Svyatoslav.

“Thou! The man who hath been defeated with one strike! I see that thou art awake.” exclaimed the woman noticing Watanabe’s wide-open eyes.

He was also noticeably shaking in fear, but that didn’t need mentioning in the narration.

The woman’s exclamation woke up Rabanowicz as well. “What the- By the Divine, it’s her!”

“I hath no idea who ‘her’ is, but I am me.” replied the ghost-woman. “Observing ye, I understand that ye two might have some questions.”