Chapter 35. Adventure in Yelwraek

“Clare! You brought him home!”

Hearing an excited voice, Ken looked around and saw a mini version of Clare happily running up towards them.

“Chloe right? You look just like Clare!”

“I was way cuter when I was her age and she will never be as beautiful as I am.” Clare snapped

“Sheesh, what a terrible older sister!”

“As much as her words are harsh. I would have to agree that Clare was definitely cuter than Chloe.”

“Cecilla! I was looking for you at the banquet. You didn’t even come over to say hello! What a pair of rude sisters.”

“Since I couldn’t fulfill my duty and got rejected by Xandrian, my father deemed me not necessary to attend the tournament this time so I didn’t get a chance to go.” Cecilla replied with a smile but her expression was full of sorrow.

“Did he at least let you off the hook now?” Ken asked, feeling bad for the girl.

“Nope! We are having a royal ball in two weeks, supposedly it’s to celebrate Clare’s birthday but obviously it’s just an excuse to get important people to gather. He told me to make myself useful and do whatever it takes to get Xandrian and his family to agree to the marriage at the ball.” Cecilla said with a chuckle.

Not willing to let Cecilla drag the mood down any further, Clare told her to go back to her wing for tonight so they could get some rest and ushered Ken into his guest room and told him to get some sleep before closing the door and wished him a good night. Too tired from the long day to put up a fight, Ken decided to listen to Clare and just go to sleep even though he would have liked to talk with Cecilla for a little bit longer.

Feeling the sun warming his face and the streaks of light through his closed eyes, Ken turned subconsciously to the other side to face away from the sunlight. Instead of emptiness, Ken felt a tickle on his nose and as he reached up he felt a soft and tender warm body.

Unconsciously, Ken pulled the body in tightly and as he felt her soft and silky hair, he buried his face deep into her until he could feel the skin on her neck and with the warmth of the girl and the sun out of his face, just as Ken was about to fall back into deep sleep.

“CECILLA! What are you doing in Ken’s room!”

Hearing the familiar voice, Ken opened his eyes to see the blond hair of the girl he’s spooning.

Instead of letting him go after getting woken up by Clare, Cecilla turned to face Ken, giving him a warm smile, she buried her face into his chest and went back to sleep.

flabbergasted at her sister’s behavior, Clare stormed into the room and started pulling Cecilla off Ken while giving him the death glare.

“Ken! Let go of her and stop pretending you are asleep! I saw you open your eyes. You two are taking it too far!”

Tired of hearing her sister screaming in her ears, Cecilla decided it was time to let go of Ken before Clare had a heart attack.

“Why did you even bring him home if you are just gonna leave him in a guest room instead of snuggling with him.” Cecilla commented while slowly getting out of Ken’s bed.

Wearing nothing but a thin nightgown, Ken could see parts of Cecilla’s flawless skin through the morning sunlight and it took all of his will to not get aroused at the sight of the beautiful elf girl.

After much complaining, Cecilla and Clare eventually left Ken’s room so he could take a shower and get ready to go explore the city with the girls.

“Morning Chloe! What are we having for breakfast?” Ken asked happily as he saw Chloe waiting outside of his room for him.

“You can have whatever you want, just need to ask the chef to cook it.”

“Really? Man living in this grand castle and having servants and chefs, you royals are living such a great life.”

“This is not the castle, silly. This is just the private wing built for my mom and us. The main castle is much grander and way fancier than this. But even we need to be summoned before we can go there so I don’t think you will get to see the inside of the actual castle.” Chloe advised as the pair headed for the dining room.

Shocked that this extravagantly fancy and gigantic mansion isn’t even the main castle but one of many wings, Ken realized that the amount of wealth here is not something he could comprehend.

Already in the dining room and arguing with each other, Ken and Chloe greeted Clare and Cecilla while Clare also introduced Ken to her mom Elora, who was no surprise, an extremely beautiful woman and Ken could definitely see how Clare ended up looking so gorgeous.

“So what’s the deal with getting permission for teleport that you and Alice were going on about.” Ken asked casually.

“Come on Ken, sometimes I think you are the smartest guy ever and then you ask questions like this from time to time. Do you really think anyone can just randomly teleport into the capital city of Yelwraek, Darrumburgh or any major city?

Since teleport is such a powerful spell, it’s extremely easy to detect and track and every major city has many runes and spells in place that would activate if unauthorized teleports are detected.

I had to talk to the castle security and go through a lot of clearance to get your access granted. If I had not and you just casually teleported in, the moment the spell activated, the security would have been there and you would most likely have been killed on the spot without any interrogation.” Clare explained, questioning Ken’s intelligence for not being able to figure this out.

“Chloe, why is your sister so mean? I’m just a country bumpkin, how am I supposed to know what you royals and big shot kingdoms deal with. I barely just learned what a continent is and that there are four continents in the world and where my hometown is on the map and Clare here is expecting me to know how you royals deal with possible trespassers.”

As Ken recently learned from studying geography with Alice as part of his advanced history lessons. The world consists of four major continents that make up about 40% of the surface area of the world with 60% covered by the oceans.

Vlayria, Yuwoa, Iruth and Agis are the four continents in the world and as it turns out, the beastman alliance that the kingdom of Miodod is part of is on the continent of Vlayria right above Yelwraek and Lovetta happened to be from the same alliance as Ken but just way up north of the territory with it’s frigid winter.

Even though the beastman alliance consists of over 200 kingdoms, the total land mass is only twice that of Yelwraek and the land is not nearly as fertile for farming. Spreading from west of the continent all the way east and owning the best farmland and also has the best weather on the entire continent, the Yelwraek kingdom owes most of its prosperity thanks to their ancestors that fought and gained this land for the kingdom before the two millenniums of peace.

The kingdom of Vespera located within Darrumburgh is on the continent of Yuwoa and as Alice pointed out on the map, it’s on the opposite side of the world from Vlayria. Feirvenn on the other hand is located on the continent of Iruth and to Ken’s surprise, the two continents Iruth and Agis have the opposite weather patterns and instead of having summers during the middle of the year with cold weather during year end. Genesis told Ken that the coldest month in Feivenn where it snows is actually in June and July.

While the group chatted, servants brought out plate after plate of freshly cooked dishes that were made to order and Ken was able to understand why some of the students would feel that the food they get served at the dining hall would be considered average when they have this treatment at home.

After a delicious breakfast, the group said goodbye to Clare’s mom and Ken along with Clare, Cecilla and Chloe headed out of the castle grounds as Ken was excited to explore one of the biggest cities in the world.

When the group reached the front lawn of the wing, a butler was already waiting with a carriage drawn by two large horses to take the four to wherever they wanted to go.

The city of Yelwraek, located on the northern east coast of the kingdom is one of the largest cities in the world with a population of over 15 million. Strategically located near the ocean and the mouth of the largest river that ran through the entire continent, the capital city’s got a huge fleet of battleships ready for any possible conflict while also happens to be one of the busiest trading ports during time of peace.

As the carriage drove down the busy six lane city streets with three lanes of carriage traffic going both directions and side walks each direction wide enough for four people to walk shoulder by shoulder, Ken was shocked at how many people there were and wondered where all those people were going.

“How many workers does it take to keep this huge road cleaned everyday? What sort of jobs do people do here? There are so many people here!”

“It’s the capital city Ken, people have all sorts of jobs here. Like you said, obviously there is a huge cleaning staff to keep all of the roads clean and other general city keeping jobs. We obviously also need construction people to build and maintain all of the buildings and castles.

You have restaurants, bakeries, markets and every type of shop imaginable to provide all the people that live here with the goods and services they need.

Just on the outskirts, there are large areas of land where farmers grow and sell crops, orchard owners grow and sell fruits and livestock owners raise and sell livestock. We are also next to the ocean so there are plenty of fishermen as well that make a living catching and selling fish.

With the large mountain range to the north that provides natural protection, it also provides us with a lot of materials where people work in the mine north to mine the minerals and then it gets transported to factories here and gets turned into weapons, artifacts and other goods.

As a major port city and one of the most traveled cities in the world, we also have a lot of traders from all over buying and selling goods. They also open factories to manufacture and mass produce things at a much lower cost due to our better infrastructure and huge population of workers.

So there you have it, if it’s a job you can think of, you can find it here in Yelwraek and that’s why people with talent and skills will always flock to major cities like this one so they can get a good job and make way more money than it’s ever possible at a small farm village in the middle of nowhere.”

As Ken listened intently to Clare’s explanation and watched the carriage go by the busy city streets, they eventually stopped in a giant parking lot with endless carriages of all size and shape.

After getting out of the carriage and walking toward the gates of wherever they had brought him, Ken noticed one of the carriage and the horse that was pulling it.

Unlike any horse he had ever seen before, this magnificent creature was twice the size of an average horse, a pure slick black coat that’s being maintained with way more care than Ken’s hair but what caught Ken’s attention instantly was its mane and tail.

Instead of a regular mane like every other horse parked at this lot, its mane, tail and hair on its legs were flaming red and looked to be burning like fire.

“What is this horse!”

“It’s a fire horse.” Cecilla answered.

“And what does that mean? Come on now, provide this commoner with more details will you? I don’t get to see creatures this magnificent where I’m from!”

“During the Great Reset, while it’s true that mostly only elves fused and turned into the new races we have today. On rare occasions there were also cases of animals fusing.

A fire horse is a descendant of horses that fused with fire element during the reset and there are many rare animal breeders around the world that people would pay huge sums of money for rare creatures and there are many facilities that specialized in breeding them.

Our father happened to be a pegasus enthusiast, we have a ranch near the castle that breeds the best pegasus in the world. We can go see it another day if you are interested.”

Ignoring the comment about elves being the original race in Cecilla’s story while human in Alice’s. Ken wondered to himself which race was actually the original that the whole entire world is now branched off from.

“Cecilla. Work with me here, I would love to go see this pegasus thing, but details! I don’t know what a pegasus is! Also, does that fire on this horse burn? It looks so cool!”

“Sorry Ken! Pegasus are winged horses that can fly. A wild fire horse will definitely try to burn you if you are a threat to it but the domestically bred ones are bred for the looks and most aren’t even that powerful so the fire might feel warm to the touch but won’t burn unless they are startled and even then, in most cases, it won’t even cause much harm because they can’t get the temperature to that high.”

Talking to the butler that just happened to still be around the carriage and getting permission, Ken happily petted the creature and its intense flaming mane felt no hotter than normal body temperature to the touch.

“Where are we anyways?” Ken wondered.

“Yelwraek land! The world’s biggest amusement park!” Chloe shouted happily.

“Chloe! What is an amusement park?”

“Just relax and wait and you will see, Ken. we are here already.” Clare reassured as the group reached the front gate and paid for the entrance fee.

Apparently, an amusement park is where the rich take their children for fun or young couples with money go for dates.

Matching its massive parking lot is a gigantic playground with all types of rides and activities for people of all ages to participate in and food stalls littered the entire area where you can’t walk 10 steps without getting tempted by something else that looks delicious.

Not sure what to expect from the rides, Ken and the girls walked to a giant swing-like ride that’s at least a hundred feet in the sky and as the swing went round in round in a circle, screaming children could be heard from miles away.

Suddenly, a kid flew off from the ride as she continued to scream until a worker gently slowed her fall with wind magic until the young girl safely landed on the ground.

When the swing eventually stopped after a while longer, Ken saw a few workers unhook a thick iron chain and the ride with about a hundred people riding started to slowly lower. Impressed with their strength, Ken knew they all had to have decent levels of physical enhancements to be able to easily pull this many people up and down with the iron chains.

As the swing lowered to ground level, Ken got on next to Clare while Chloe and Cecilla sat behind them and once the seats got filled up, the same workers pulled the chains until the swing was back to the top of the pole a hundred feet up in the air.

“Wouldn't it be safer if they tied you down to the seat with a rope or something?” Ken wondered after seeing a little girl get flung off the ride moments earlier.

“What’s the fun if you knew you won’t get thrown off the ride? There are plenty of safety workers staffed just to be sure no one gets injured.” Clare answered while grabbing onto Ken while Cecilla could be heard complaining about having to ride with Chloe behind them.

From the top view, Ken could see an artifact attached to the top of the pole and as he watched, engraved runes started to light up and soon, the artifact began to glow and the swing began to swing faster and faster as more and more screams could be heard.

For Ken and Clare, they were more than strong enough to not have any issues staying on the seats but as the swing went faster, Ken could see a kid here and there getting flung off the swing and screaming as they fell.

After the swing, the group went around and had fun on many other rides where every single one was powered by a specialized artifact and designed to be extremely dangerous and offered a high adrenaline rush for those that are not well training and screams could be hear at every ride with people getting flung off, falling off, and getting thrown off the ride and the attentive safety staff provided the much needed protection to prevent serious injuries.

“See Ken, once you master advanced magic, you will never be short of a job. They are always hiring and the pay is rather good for just watching over kids.” Clare offered as the group relaxed at a busy food stall enjoying some food after a full morning of enjoying the rides.

“Yea, watching over kids and making sure they don’t fall to their death. They better be paid well or I ain't trusting them with the lives of all those kids.”

After the group finished eating, while Ken wanted to go to the water park area and enjoy the slides and play in the water. Clare refused and told him that both Cecilla and herself are too recognizable so they have to stay low profile with the hats or else it would be too much hassle dealing with all of the unwanted attention. But a bigger reason, Clare simply didn’t want Ken to go stare at all the girls only wearing a bikini or bathing suit.

Since Clare refused to let Ken go to the water area, the group stayed around the land area of the park and got on more rides in the afternoon while still having a great time. One of the rides had the four get into a cart with an air artifact that pushed it from behind and as the cart increased speed down the track, it got faster and faster and went up,down,left and right and did many loop de loops over and over again until the spell wore off.

While for Ken, Clare and Cecilla, it was easy to hold onto the cart, Chloe screamed and nearly fell off many times which was the norm as many children were seen falling off the cart during the loop de loops.

Another ride wasn’t even a ride at all where they were simply launched straight up into the air hundreds of feet up and were left to free fall until the staff slowed them down to ensure they didn't fall to their death.

To ensure Chloe’s safety, Ken made sure he went up with her while Clare and Cecilla were on guard duty as he couldn’t entrust her safety to the workers and was bewildered how many parents could entrust complete strangers with the safety of their children.

“How do parents trust their children's lives to some random park worker!”

“Ken, you do realize that most people wear protection artifacts right? Me, Cecilla and Chloe are all wearing a protection earring. If they do happen to fail at their job, the protection spell will prevent any harm and if they are strong enough like the ones we are wearing, that drop wouldn’t even break the protection and we can continue on enjoying the rides. The worker might not be so lucky but accidents like that rarely happen.”

“Wait! You mean I was the only one in any danger of dying from falling off?”

“Ken! You are attending The Dragonspire Academy. Like you won’t be able to handle some joy rides.”

After a full day of fun, the exhausted group concluded the day with a nice dinner including ice cream for dessert and Ken was shocked to have tasted this amazing dessert for the first time.

“How come they didn’t have this ice cream thing at the banquet! This is so good!” Ken complained while wondering how this delicious dessert was created.

“They have all types of ice cream flavors at the front table, I guess Alice and I never brought you any since it would melt if left out sitting so we just got you cake and whatnot for desserts. I am pretty sure there are at least a few ice cream shops on the island.”

“Clare! You can’t keep such sweet and delicious food from me! Why haven’t we gone to any of the ice cream shops if they had them on the island? Now I need to go see if they got them in Miodod so I can take my siblings to go try some ice cream.”

After dessert, the four walked happily to the carriage while Ken started feeling sorry for the butler who he thought was waiting on them the full day. But thankfully, when they left the park, what is called a runner asked them if they came in a carriage and if so what was the driver’s name and by the time they reached the carriage, the butler was there waiting and greeted them for their arrival.

According to the butler, depending on the person, most would choose to stay in the rest area that was next to the parking lot where they could relax, chat and buy food as needed and the runner would come get them if the owner had returned and their service was required. Most would also pay for a package so the horses would get fed, have shades provided and even have their coat brushed and other care done depending on the package that was purchased.

By the time they got back to the castle, Chloe was already fast asleep from a day of excitement and got carried away by a servant to her room so she could rest while Clare and Cecilla walked Ken to his room.

“Lock your room Ken. I don’t want to see Cecilla sneak into your room again.”

“If you don’t like him and won’t even stay in the same room with him when you finally have alone time with him. Might as well tell father you will go marry Xandrian while let me have Ken.”

After getting taunted, Clare got inside the room with Ken and slammed the door close and locked the door and told Cecilla to go to sleep. Wishing Ken and Clare a good night through the door, Cecilla was glad that her best friend got to spend the night with the man she loved but also feeling the pain of not being able to do so herself as she walked slowly back to her room overcome with a sense of sadness.

Alone with Ken, Clare was at a loss at what to do before Ken suggested that they should take a shower and get ready for sleep.

“Let’s go take a shower together and get to sleep. I am exhausted!”

“Ken! I am not going to take a shower with you. you go first. I will take one after you are done.”

“I was just joking! Didn’t know you were this shy Clare.” Ken teased as he went to take a quick shower.

Walking out without a shirt and in only his underpants, Clare scolded him when she saw the way he was dressed and quickly went into the bathroom.

Finding it funny that someone like Lovetta who’s normally so shy and reserved was so comfortable sharing a bed with him and perfectly fine being intimate but Clare acting so timid was not something he didn’t expect to learn.

By the time Clare finally finished her shower and walked back into the bedroom, Ken was already fast asleep from the long and exhausting day. Laying down next to him and pressing her forehead against his, Clare gives Ken a quick kiss before curling up into his chest and falling asleep while being embraced.