Chapter 12 – Kiss the knight

I honestly should have gone straight to the Seal shop last night, but my stomach and my sanity demanded otherwise. So, here I was, back at home like a responsible adult.
Well—“responsible adult” if you ignore the fact that the Queen of this kingdom had somehow followed me home and was currently sprawled out beneath my air-conditioner like a hibernating polar bear.

“Your Majesty,” I said, nudging her foot with my toe, “shouldn’t you be in your royal palace? You know, doing queen things—taxes, court hearings, making life difficult for peasants or something?”

“Mmmmph,” came the royal reply. Translation: nope.

Great. I now officially owned a royal freeloader.
And to make things worse, she’d discovered my AC remote. She had the thing clutched in her hand like it was the royal sceptre. Each time the temperature crept up one degree, she’d press the button with the smug smile of someone who knows the value of modern comforts.

Lucy leaned on the doorway, arms folded, watching the Queen with the look of a knight who’s given up trying to enforce basic decorum.
“Your guest seems… comfortable,” Lucy said.

“Yeah,” I sighed. “She’s in full lizard-hibernation mode. At this point I’m just glad she hasn’t ordered a golden statue of herself in my living room.”

The real reason I’d hurried back wasn’t to babysit royalty, though.
It was the laptop.

Yes, my shiny new system-issued laptop—complete with every app I could dream of, even though the concept of ‘internet’ here was about as mythical as dragons.
Still, it had games, a full set of offline tools, and—get this—its very own browser called ISEKAI BROWSER.
The name itself screamed “sketchy fantasy tech support hotline,” but hey, a browser is a browser. Maybe it would magically connect to an otherworldly Wi-Fi. One can dream.

While I was busy exploring the laptop, the girls had started doing… everything. These days they didn’t need my help to handle the electronic appliances the system had granted me. They operated the washing machine, the AC, even the toaster like seasoned professionals. I wasn’t sure whether to be proud or terrified.

Dinner was a rowdy affair. Lucy had arrived, Queen included herself uninvited (naturally), and before I knew it everyone was demanding the “special wine.”
It was system-issued—the kind of drink that would probably put ordinary mortals to sleep for a week.

“Bottoms up!” the Queen declared, holding her glass like a conquering hero.

I hesitated. “You sure you can handle this? Last time you got tipsy and tried to knight my washing machine.”

“Nonsense,” she said, already taking a heroic gulp.

Five minutes later she was giggling like a schoolgirl and attempting to balance a spoon on her nose. Lucy, Urara, and Lily weren’t far behind. The system’s wine had a kick like an angry mule.

“Never had wine this strong,” Lucy admitted, cheeks glowing.

“Your Majesty,” I warned, as the Queen began humming a very questionable ballad about a handsome baker.
She waved a dismissive hand and slurred, “I am the Queen! I can sing about whoever I want!”

Well. Can’t argue with that.

Morning arrived far too soon.
Hangover-free—thanks to a mysterious system perk—I rounded up the team for our trip to the Seal shop. We needed answers, and the mysterious numbers (222, 356, 856, 452) had led us here.

I took Lily and Urara with me. Better to keep the others—especially the Queen—under watch, but leaving them at home wasn’t an option. Sure, I had a system-given barrier protecting the house, but I wasn’t about to test it while mysterious villains were running around kidnapping children.

The Seal shop turned out to be a narrow, two-storey building wedged between a bakery and what looked suspiciously like an alchemist’s coffee bar. The air smelled like herbs and something I could only describe as “unholy mint.”

The moment we stepped inside, my nose was assaulted by a thousand scents. Shelves groaned under the weight of bottles filled with glowing liquids, powders that sparkled ominously, and things that looked like dried lizard tails.

“This place…” I muttered, “…is basically a fantasy pharmacy run by a mad scientist.”

Urara’s eyes were wide. “Half these things would be illegal back home.”

“Half of our medicines would be illegal here,” Lily shot back, sniffing at a jar labeled Phoenix Cough Drops—May Contain Actual Phoenix.

The Queen, ever curious, leaned toward a display of crimson potions. “Darling,” she purred, “which one makes you… turn on for me?”

I nearly choked on my own spit.
“Excuse me?!”

Lily and Urara whipped their heads around in perfect synchronization.
“WHAT?” they said in unison.

The Queen merely fluttered her lashes and pointed to a bottle with a heart-shaped label. “It says ‘Love Tonic.’ I’m only asking for research purposes.”

“Research my foot,” I muttered, face on fire. “We are not testing potions for… that.”

“Your loss,” she said, sipping something that smelled like fermented strawberries. “Could have been fun.”

I prayed silently for the ground to open up and swallow me.

Trying to ignore the Queen’s antics, I wandered to the back where a tall rack caught my attention. The labels on the bottles there made my blood run cold.

222, 356, 856, 452

Exactly the numbers I’d seen scribbled in that book.

“Queen! Lucy! Over here!” I called.

Lucy joined me, eyes narrowing as she read the labels. “These match the ones from the clue.”

“Exactly,” I said. “Looks like we’ve found the right spot.”

The Queen, suddenly serious, took the four bottles and marched toward the counter like a woman on a royal mission. “We’ll find out who’s behind this,” she declared.

With the official investigation underway, Lily, Urara, and I retreated to a small corner table where a kind old shop assistant handed us something called “Beast Burgers.”

Yes, burgers. In a medicine shop. Because apparently in this world, the line between pharmacy and fast food joint is nonexistent.

I took a bite. “Okay, this is disturbingly good.”

Lily chewed thoughtfully. “Why do you wear the same shirt every day, Erik? Is it a detective uniform or…?”

“It’s called laundry,” I said, gesturing vaguely. “I wash it. Regularly. Don’t worry.”

“Still,” she said, poking at her burger, “you really should get some new clothes.”

She wasn’t wrong. My entire wardrobe consisted of two shirts and a pair of jeans that had seen better days. The system’s washing machine had kept them from self-destructing, but I was starting to feel like a cartoon character.

“Hey, Urara,” I said between bites, “your sister’s a tailor, right? Could she make clothes for me?”

Urara’s face brightened. “Yes! I already sent her a letter. She’ll send some soon.”

“Wait,” I said, pausing mid-chew. “Didn’t the Duke say your village was wiped out? How is your sister alive to send anything?”

Urara lifted her chin proudly. “Our clan has hidden sanctuaries even I don’t know about. And we use secret birds for carrying letters.”

“Secret birds,” I repeated. “Of course. Why not. Next you’ll tell me the birds can recite Shakespeare.”

“They can sing,” she said, smirking. “Does that count?”

I gave up. “This world.”

The conversation drifted into laughter, the kind that makes you forget, for a moment, that people had recently tried to kidnap your friend.

Then a scream shattered the air.

It came from deeper inside the shop.

The scream that split the medicine shop wasn’t the polite sort of yell that makes you turn your head; it was the kind that made your heart slam into your ribs.
We burst through the swinging door at the back of the shop and were instantly swallowed by a heavy, herbal fog. Glass jars lay smashed across the floor like glittering shrapnel. The smell of crushed leaves and bitter potions stung my nose.

Then I saw her.

Lucy.

Her sword clattered uselessly to the floor. Her right arm—her sword arm—had turned a deep, horrifying shade of purple. Veins of violet crawled up toward her shoulder like lightning made of ink. Tears streaked her cheeks, but her body stood between the Queen and danger like an unyielding wall.

And the danger…
A man, easily past sixty, with a ragged grey beard and only one good leg. He leaned on a crude wooden crutch that had been modified into something between a crossbow and a spear-thrower. The weapon—whatever unholy hybrid it was—was already drawn and aimed straight at the Queen’s heart.

“Not one more step,” he rasped, his voice cracked like old parchment. “Or the girl dies.”

His eyes glittered with a fanatic’s resolve.
Lucy gasped, her purple arm twitching. Her sword hand hung limp.

Not again.
Not another Kiara. Not another moment of helplessness.

But this time was different. I wasn’t the same panicked amateur from before.
The system had granted me two new bonuses after the last encounter—two precious extra rounds of bullets.

I steadied my aim.

Before the old man could even register the movement, I fired.

Bang. Bang.

One bullet struck the weapon, knocking it sideways; the second buried itself in his good leg.
The makeshift crutch snapped and he crumpled with a howl, weapon skittering across the floor.

I sprinted to Lucy’s side.
Her arm was… dying. That was the only word for it. The purple hue deepened into black at her fingertips; her muscles twitched and then went eerily still. Her face twisted in agony as she bit her lip, refusing to cry out.

“Lucy!” I shouted, but her eyes were already glassy.

The Queen strode to the fallen man like a storm in royal silk. She seized him by the collar and yanked him upright despite his cries. “The antidote. Now.”

He bared his yellowed teeth, even as blood seeped from his leg. “No antidote,” he wheezed. “Failed invention. Even I am curious… how the Queen survives…”

Something in her expression snapped.
Without a word, she raised her boot and—thwack!—delivered a kick that made every male in the room wince. The old man folded with a strangled squeak.

Lily and Urara were on him in an instant, ropes flying. They bound his arms and legs with a speed that suggested they’d been waiting for a chance to tie up troublemakers all their lives.

He laughed—a harsh, broken sound. “Ten minutes… and she will be paralyzed forever. Hahaha!”

Lucy whimpered. “I… I don’t want that…” Her voice cracked like dry twigs. “I have so many dreams… I don’t want to be… useless…”

Lily dropped beside her, wrapping both arms around Lucy’s trembling shoulders. Tears shone in Lily’s eyes. “Don’t you dare give up. Not you.”

Lucy forced a weak smile, even through the pain. “Then… little Lily… you have to do it for me… be the knight I couldn’t—”

“That’s enough,” I said.

I don’t know where the words came from, but they cut through the room like a blade.
I stepped forward, heart hammering, every nerve screaming at me to act. My hand found Lucy’s waist and—

[MAGICAL HEALING PARAGRAPH – edit as you wish]
In a rush of instinct and something deeper, a sudden surge of warm energy burst through me, pouring into Lucy moth like hot river water. Her tongue and my tongue touching like 2 soft leaves of tree. Her soft tongue I am trying to suck enough that all the saliva came out from both of our mouth.. The world around us blurred; all I could sense was the pulse of her life and a golden current flowing from my chest into her. I kept sucking her tongue, at some point her legs trembling and she sat down on floor. Gradually her hands dryness going off and muscle started to slow.

SYSTEM POPS UP
TRIKULA USES REMAINING – ZERO

Actually this was the 2nd bonus gift I got from system. Cause I helped to capture that 1 thief from Duke’s house. But I saved it for myself at near death moment but I had to use it for Lucy unfortunately.

And here gasps filled the room.
The Queen’s jaw literally dropped.
Even the bound old man went silent, eyes wide in disbelief.
Urara and Lily exchanged looks that said Did that just happen?

Lucy stared at her restored arm. “I… I can move…” She flexed her hand, the sword’s weight once again familiar in her grip. Disbelief turned to wonder, then to fierce joy. “It’s back… I can fight again!”

She threw her arms around me in a fierce hug that nearly knocked the wind out of me.
“Thank you, Erik,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “I… I’d do anything for you. Anything. Even… marry you if I must.”

The Queen, never one to let a dramatic moment go un-teased, tilted her head with a sly grin. “Then you’d have to be his second wife, darling. I claimed first long ago.”

Lily smirked, not missing a beat. “Guess that makes Urara and me third and fourth. Congratulations, everyone.”

My face went hot. “No one is my wife!” I sputtered. “This is not a royal dating show. Can we please focus on the fact that an armed man just tried to murder the Queen?”

The Queen only laughed, a soft, dangerous sound. “Oh, darling. We can multitask.”

Urara chuckled. “Erik, you collect admirers faster than potions around here.”

Lucy sheathed her sword with a defiant flourish, eyes still shining. “Whether or not I’m your wife, I owe you my life. That’s a debt I intend to repay.”

I rubbed the back of my neck, trying to ignore the heat creeping up my ears. “Yeah, yeah. Just… maybe repay me by not getting yourself cursed next time, okay?”

The bound man groaned, dragging our attention back to reality. His earlier bravado had dimmed, but the sneer remained.

“You think you’ve won,” he rasped. “But the seal you seek… is already broken.”

The Queen’s eyes hardened. “Speak plainly.”

He chuckled, the sound like dry bones rattling. “Too late. You’ll see soon enough.”

His head lolled, and with one last wheezing laugh, he fell silent. Unconscious—or worse.

The Queen checked his pulse. “Alive. For now. But we’ll get no more answers from him tonight.”

Lucy flexed her healed arm once more and scowled at the limp body. “Next time,” she muttered, “I won’t need saving.”

I looked around at the wreckage—the shattered jars, the spilled potions, the trail of herbs and glittering shards. The Seal shop smelled of danger and damp earth.
And somewhere, beyond these walls, someone was already planning the next move.