Chapter 24: Through the forest, up the mountain, towards new adventure

While being one of the last group to leave the start line, we were making a steady progress. Calva as frontliner was getting more and more comfortable with her role, mainly thanks to power boosts she got from Regga. Gordo turned out to be even better tank then anyone expected him as he was not moved even by a monster twice his size. On the other hand Cina was…

"Oc-ta! Oc-ta! Where. Is. Land Octa?"

Clearly, her brain was recieving orders from her stomach.

"Well, at least someone is in good mood…" Arsen smiled as he checked our position on his magic GPS device (invented by Leo, made by Raidur).

Leo used his connections with royal blacksmiths and his sister’s connection to thirteen wands and started producing magic items that didn’t needed magic stone board, the most common magic power item (i.e. magic battery). This experimenting with magic items created the Liquidized magic stone and lead to creation of most of the magic items in Leo’s home. He went so far, as to connect all magic items in the house, that were not to be moved like fridges, lamps and other light producing magic tools, and much more, with the Liquid magic stone battery (sometimes reffered to as Limas Battery) just to make the work of his servants easier.

"I guess we are about halfway from the top so if we walk for an hour or two, we should make it to the top tomorrow around lunch time. Once we rest, we should continue up for at least a little, anyone who disagrees?" Leo said as he looked around.

"No!" the four students raised their fists with smiles on their faces.

"And where’s Land Octa?" Cina asked her eyes brimming with serious curiosity.

If we don’t ecounter any, she will be really displeased… there should be a pond where they gather to drink water, if I remember correctly…

"Don’t worry, we should be able to get some by evening. That’s when they are most active, after all."

The air felt fresh, making our walk that much easier. However, there were barely any monsters present.

"Nyaaaa… there aren’t any, nya…"

"Of course there aren’t any monsters. Those before us were so loud that they are hiding now. One of the perks of going later."

"That is indeed the case, my lord," Nina said with a smile.

"Anyway, it would be good to get some combat training as well," Arsen added.

"That would definitely make it easier for you to judge our abilities," Regga said with an understanding look.

The scenery was always unchanging, but the ground bellow their feet started feeling much more sluggish and soft.

"This terrain is quite hard to tread upon."

"It is, but it will lead us to a short cut and some food. Be ready for combat everyone," Leo said after looking around himself.

The group continued through the forest and shortly arrived at a muddy pond. The smell of rotting leaves and branches filled the stagnate air.

"This doesn't look nice."

"It's an arena boss," Leo smiled.

"Erm, what?" Regga got confused.

"We left some slightly stronger monsters every now and then. Nothing past level twenty, mind you. We stumbled upon one of them."

In that moment the muddy pudle started vibrating and bubles started appearing here and there. The monster started appearing from the depth. It had a frog like head and hands on a humanoid body. One of it's eyes was red and the other one had already rotted away. The flesh of the monster was hold together with undead energy.

"That's ugly nya!" Cina's hairs stood up as she hissed at the monster.

"Don't get distracted! Gordo taunt it! Regga prepare to enhance Calva! Cina make sure to not let it hurt Gordo too much!"

The group got back on track with Leos words. Gordo tackled the attacking undead with his shield and stabbed its leg with his short sword. The Undead however didn't let itself get too distracted and tried to hit Gordo with it's sharpened bone-y hand.

That was however stopped by Cina who threw her knife at it. Given she was the highest level student after Leo, damage she dealt was much greater then the damage dealt by Gordo. At that time, however, Regga finished his chant.

"…let them be strong! «Muscle enhancement»!!!"

"Thanks!" Calva practically barked back and started running at the toad. "Huh?"

"I hope you like my ground reinforcement spell," Leo smiled as he silently casted his earth magic spell.

"Thank you!" Calva called with a smile as she got to the battle locked Gordo and the undead.

Calva raised her sword high and drow it down at the undead's neck. The sword hit and cleanly cut off the head. The energy of the undead started waining until it disappeared completly.

"Haah haaaah, what was that?" Gordo fell on his rear, looking at Leo.

"Undead Toad fiend. There are some living on the other side of the mountain, they are barely level 10 on average. This one was probably expelled from his pack and his grudges kept him around even after death."

"I see… are there more of those?"

"There shouldn't be. Let get to hunting our diner, «Incinerate»," Leo smiled and burned the Undead's body.

The group continued walking and got to a clearing that looked quite unnatural, which after the event with the undead, made everyone stand on their toes.

"Well, get ready to hunt," Leo smiled and hit tree next to him with his fist. The tree shook and several white octopus with brown circles on them fell down.

"LAND OCTA!!!!!" Cina's eyes shone like stars and started catching the monsters that tried to run away from her and the others.

"Catch them everyone! Each of you need to have at least three Land Octas minimum," Leo said while stucking his forth Land Octa into his bag.

"R-right!" the remaining trio started catching them as well and when everyone had four at the very least, Leo showed them how to prepare them before cooking.

"Well, given how big these are, we better cut off those tentacles and skewer them before cooking."

"Okay, but shouldn't we start the fire then?"

"It's okay, «Campfire»" Leo used a fire spell on ground to make a small dent with fire inside it and stones around it.

"A compound spell?" Nina looked interrested.

"It's one of the most easier ones to use, but as long as the fire goes on, it will eat away some of my magic power."

"So, how long do we have until it will go off?"

"About two months, I guess?" Leo said flatly.

"Yeah, of course it's absurdly long time…" Regga looked defeatedly and went to grill his Land Octas.

"It's getting late, shouldn't you start building tents?" Arsen asked as he practically drolled over the Land Octa.

"Oh, you can leave that to me, «Camp ground»" Leo snapped his fingers and four small houses sprung up from ground behind them. Two of which were signed with letters B and G and two were without any sign.

"I don't need to tell you where to go, right?"

"Oh wow, can you make a toilet too?" Regga tried to tease Leo.

Leo, however just snapped his fingers and two more small buildings appeared, "Anything else?"

"Amazing!" Calva investigated both, house and the toilet before promptly closing herself in with reddened cheeks.

"Yeah, now that I think about it, I need to take a break too," Gordo said with simmilarly reddened cheeks and closed himself in the other booth.

"This is absurd… this is supposed to be survival expedition meant for us to test our strenght and resilience, but this feel like summer camp…" Regga, the serious one laughed defeatedly.

"We are supposed to use the most of our abilities and I do just that," Leo smiled at him as he took a bite of Land Octa.

"You are just too off the charts!!!" Regga snapped.

"Yeah, I guess you're right…" Leo smiled with a hint of bitterness.

"Don't nya be a stingclam, Regga, nya. Eat some Octa and nya'll be happy!" Cina pushed a skewer at Regga's face.

"Oy! Don't be pushy, cat!" Regga tried to push her away, but Cina would not let him be that easily.

"C'mooon! We need be strong for tomorrow! So nya need to stuff nya face nyow!" Cina went to full frontal attack.

"It's slightly annoying to hear it from Cina, but she's right. You need to eat," Calva added and pushed her skewer to Regga, who flushed pink which was hard to notice due to his red skin.

"Well team leader, what is the plan for tomorrow?" Gordo asked Leo who was watching the trio while trying to hide his laugh.

"Right. Once we wake up, we with do some light exercise and head out. If my guess is right, we should be at the resort by lunch."

"Can we really make it that fast?" Nina asked as she was not familiar with the terrain.

"From the maps we were given I choose path that is easier to traverse while having minimal number of ecounters with monsters and other teams. I'm quite sure that we will have a lot of drop outs this evening," as Leo said that, a few beams of light shot towards the sky.

"What was that?!" Calva got so surprised that she almost fell over the bench.

"Light signal from knights accompanying some of the groups. It's signal indicating they had to intervine in order to protect the lives of students."

"In other words, they failed," Nina said with a sad, pittying smile.

"We should go sleep so we can wake up early…" Leo looked around, his eyes shining blue with combination of Analyze subskill and See through Evil eye.

"Is something the matter?" Arsen asked looking slightly worried.

"Oh, nothing. You could say I'm just little too worried about my girls."

"Oh? And why is that?"

"Well, there are monsters that they despise," Leo chuckled lightly, "But I guess they are fine so far."

"Did you used forbidden magic? I would have to report that," Arsen winked.

"Oh, so scarry, I used only skills which are allowed, though," Leo responded jokingly.

The night was peaceful and no monsters came so when the group woke up and did some excercises, they started heading up to the top of the mountain.

On the way, they didn't found any stronger monster, but the amount of weaker monsters managed to level up the lower leveled members of the group, which would help their overall evaluation.

The forest started to get thinner and thinner and after a while they came out on a clearing, where in the back they could see walls of solid stone blocks and steam rising behind it.

"We made it everyone! We just have to go to the main entry now," Leo smiled and lead the way.

"Oh? I knew I hear someone familiar," Victina emerged from the forest little behind Leo's group with Gloriosa following behind her.

"Oh, Tina and Risa. How was your hike?"

"Surprisingly good. Our team made sure we were safe and with Risa's summons, we were safe even through the night."

"Oh, please! Were it not for your magic Tina, we would not be able to have such good camp grounds."

The two girls chuckled together as their bond grew closer.

***

That evening Leo went to the communal bath with the rest of the boys. Surprisingly, he was not the only noble there. Some of the nobles in other groups became friendlier with the commoners in their groups. Sadly, the relationships were still more akin to master-servant one, but they were much more respectful now. Maybe one day they will be able to act as equals, Leo hoped as he submerged in the water.

"Oh, Leo," Regga came next to Leo and submerged in the hot water, "What did you do to get that nasty scar?"

Leo looked down his scar from his fight with the dragon and smiled fondly at the memory.

"I fought with a dragon and this is the reward I got from it."

"A DRAGON?!"

"It was just a Forest Dragon…" Leo run his fingers down the scar. Not even the strongest healing magic was unable to heal this, so I will be stuck with it for ever.

"Oh…"

"What is it?"

"It seems someone tried to enter this male baths while being a female. My servants will take them out, but I will go to the private bath… Ah, now I got report about the reverse happening as well."

"So a guy went to girls bath?"

"Yep. And he got beaten up."

"Wait what?"

"That fatso got humiliated by two girls who were on their way out."

"Fatso? Ooooh! You mean Julius of the Orchidee family."

"Yeah. I'm gonna talk with him as well."

Leo left the baths, changed and left the bathing area. He passed through the adjacent hallways and noticed two maids carrying Kiira.

"Oh, master… Lady Kiira tried to pass the barrier and was hit with the paralysis," one of the maids reported.

"So I heard from the report. Take her to the room I designated for case it would happen. And for the boy… deal with him approriately."

"Understood."

"Well, given what happened, I don't think he will resist much."

"Don't take it lightly," Leo's voice turned dark and cold, his piercing gaze hitting both maids, "that piece of fat tried to touch Nina and Alette, my fiancées. We are going to crush any and all dignity he have. End of discussion."

""U-Understood!!"" the two maids bowed and took Kiira away.

Given he is a son of a duke, he might have some uses in the future, but until his uses became real, we will have to make sure he's obedient. There is no use for tool that doesn't serve its only purpose.

With that done, Leo retreated to his private chamber, where he meet up with the rest of the girls to discuss the plans going forward.

"Well, sumer break is reaching us, so what are your plans?"

"I recieved report from my sister that she took in some refugees from the war in northeast."

"I see… we might come in contact with Passarion kingdom and the Blue Origin Theocracy. I was interrested in their saintess who is said to possess strongest unique skills… what? I'm interrested in her skills, not her personally."

"Riiiiiiight," the girls clearly didn't trust Leo completly on this.

"ANY-way, what did we got from the captured assassins?" Leo turned to Nina, who was holding the report.

"Um, well… they are from all over the places. Most of the time their aim was to capture and ransom the princesses and hurt our publicity."

"Did we dealt with whoever the requester was?"

"Indeed. We send them cold box as a present and thanks to our Space magic and Psychic magic working together, we were able to deliver them yesterday evening. Now that they know that we know, what they wanted to do, they will be much more willing to help."

"That was fast. We better thank all those who helped."

"Yes. Although… there was another group that was targeting Kiira instead."

"Who were they?"

"Elves under direct command of the duchess."

"I see, they were trying to kill her becouse they believe she is the duke's bastard daughter. What a preposterous claim," Leo smiled darkly.

"Leo, this shouldn't end in bloodshed," Alette chidded Leo.

"True, sorry about that. Killing them would be the easiest way to dispose of those standing in our way, but it would not made us look good. Right. I got a plan, tell me what you think," Leo conected his hands as he leaned forward and started explaining his plan to the girls.

"I see, that would certainly brought us some gains. Plus if everything goes as planned, we might get to strenghten our relationship with other nobles on the way there."

"Yes. Marquis Hadrius in the capital is excellent tool, but we can't have him on our back and call all the time. His friendliness also doesn't have to last forever… we better strenghten our relationship with other lords and climb the social ladder even further in surroundings of the Elvieren dukedom. After all, we only have a decent sway in south where Netrose family resides and in central regions, where Royal family rules directly. If we become stronger in north too, we will clip the Elvieren dukedom from their supporters and if the Orchidee's bastard tries something, we will have them surrounded from three sides," Ruzu nodded.

"Once everyone heads out to the royal capital, I will head out as well, though in other direction. I will have Kiira accompany me with ten soldiers. Well, I don't need them, but if we were traveling alone, there might be rumors that would try to say something like I'm fooling around with other girls when I'm already engaged to two princesses and whatever."

"True, there already are rumors that you only surround yourself with slaves and pretty girls."

"Well, it's not like the people of the Servant's guild can be trusted, heck, we use it to send spies to other households too! And the pretty girl part? Well, at least we know they have functional eyes."

When Leo said that, the girls turned bright red and nodded meekly. Ooops, I said something again…

***

A few days after the debate the carriages started moving again, this time heading back to the royal academy. Leo and Kiira on the other hand had their hands full with preparing gifts for their visits in the northern parts of the kingdom.

"Aaaah, I have you all for myself again…" Kiira smiled happily as the two of them boarded carriage alone.

"Oh, please. We are not alone at all."

"I knooow, but stiiiiiilll," Kiira spread herself over Leo and snuggled against him, which didn't really felt nice becouse of her armor and complete lack of development in all the important areas.

The travel would thanks to Space magic take only eight to nine days, but it still required enormous amout of fake smiles and other noble necesities.

Leo and Kiira smiled from morning to evening to all the lords they got to meet until they managed to get to the Elvieren dukedom. This dukedom, unlike the others in Ostillian kingdom, was originally an independent country, but due to constant attacks from their neighbours and monsters, they had to request aid and ended up becoming a vassal state of Ostillian kingdom and eventually becoming a part of the kingdom few years later when the first duke sweared alligence to the Ostillian king of the time. This left some disdain for the kingdom in the hearts of the people, but nevertheless, they worked together and managed to rebuild a certain amount of strenght.

"The Duchess, which is direct descendant of the first duke, probably wants to reinstate the kingdom and regain all lost lands in the past. She is quite patriotic, you could say."

"It's no wonder she would see me as a threat. The kingdom could claim that I am the only heir to dukedom becouse I'm daugter of the duke. It could break out in war in the worst case."

"Yeah, but we would absolutely destroyed them. No doubt about that."

"Just dispatching us would seal the deal… are you sure about this?"

"Of course. Our official reason for comming here was to ask the refugees from Gameria and other lands as well as the people of the slums to come to our underdeveloped regions. Making sure no war breaks out is only secondary. Though, would you like to be a duchess?"

"No chance. I would loose time with you, after all," Kiira snuggled against me like a cat.

"Than, alls well. We are going to win this fight."

"Yes!"

The capital of Elvieren duchy was located at the southernmost tip of the Great Folg Jungle. This ancient forest was home to many high leveled monsters, so one would expect people to be high leveled as well, but that would be wrong assumption. If usuall level of people of other regions was between 8 and 15, one would guess that people here would be around thirty, that would be only true of soldiers, as the general population was between levels 10 and 20. Nevertheless, both Leo and Kiira are over level fifty, meaning that only a handful of people could effectively go against them.

The two rested at the inn, went to swoon some survivors of Gameria and got readied for a ball in the evening. The ball was held by Earl Zailen, who while serving the ducal family, was also feeding information to king on orders from the duke himself. The duchess was invited with her husband too, so this would be their final confrontation.

First class food, first class drinks, first class music, third grade guests. Except for the duchess and her husband, no one was above count level.

"I must say, sir Dragonrose, I was not expecting you to go socializing so soon after the Survival expedition."

"I heard from my brother in capital, that all that managed to get to the goal were after returning at least at level 20! What an amazing feat!"

The nobles were clamoring around Leo, who was returning them polite greetings spiced up with 'Thank you,' 'That's incredibly kind of you,' 'I have good classmates,' and so on and so forth.

About hour into the event a gong sounded through the room. The duchess entered with her husband. The two couldn't be more different from each other. The duke was tall man with lean, yet muscular body, his eyes sparkling with ruby radiance. His hairs were ashen, but he was by no means old, he could still be conscidered in his late twenties by elvish standrards, even though he was over two hundred years old. The duchess on the other hand could be described by single word: Ork. She was not pretty by any mean of the word, even her make up was making her look more like a monster than a person.

"Oya? You are here, Dragonrose?" The duchess was surprised, but almost instantly glared at Kiira.

"It's an honor to meet you, your grace." Leo said curtly with a smile, "Is something the matter? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Oh, nothing, nothing. How was the Survival Expedition?"

"It was a great experience, though we could have easier time, were it not for those pests other people were sending."

"Pests?" the duke asked, rising his brow.

"Just some assassin wannabes. They couldn't even make it past the walls of the perimeter."

"Oh, is that so? That's good, then," the duke smiled.

"Yes, but the numbers were worrisome, so I'm currently investigating the senders with his majesty the king."

"I would definitely want to hear more. After all, my son was there, too. How did he do, anyway?"

"I was not with him the entire time, but I did hear he fought valiantly for his team." Leo said with a smile, but the truth hidden inside wanted to make him snicker, becouse young Orion was the first one to drop out from the Survival expedition.

"I see, that's good! Then let us speak in private later. I would deffinitely want to hear more!" the duke patted Leos shoulder, almost making him fall over with his brute strenght and size difference.

"It would be my honor," Leo bowed lightly. Hook, like and sinker, Leo and Kiira smiled like predators as they left the duo and went to socialize with other nobles.

The next day the carriage Leo and Kiira were riding towards the palace of the ducal couple. They were attacked on the way out of the party day before, but it was attack so futile that Leo countered it only by his most basic barrier spell.

"Welcome, sir Dragonrose, please come inside." The Duke invited Leo and Kiira to the parlor, where redhaired maid and the duchess were already waiting.

"Thank you for inviting us, lady Eleia."

"Welcome, sir Dragonrose."

"First of all, please accept this little gift from us, to show you our friendship," Leo gestured to Kiira who handed to the mair a box with a wide smile. There was a little similarity between the two, but not that noticible to anyone without trained eye.

"KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!"

"What is is?!" the duke instantly went over to the screaming maid that opened the box.

The box had six severed heads inside it. All of them belonging to special unit under the duchess herself, the Black dagger.

"What's the meaning of this?!"

"Just returning lost dogs, nothing that serious."

"Eleia! Did you send them?!" the duke was angry, but not as much as the duchess, who kept her cool.

"Calm down, will you? You are supposed to be the strong one here."

"Well, unlike you, oh, great duchess of the elves, your husband is well aware of the situation. Your spies were captured in place where they had no right to be. We captured other spies appart form yours as well. The Blue Origin Theocracy, Passurian kingdom, Knightly kingdom, you name it. This country have policy of executing the spies after getting out all informations you can and we did extract all the information we needed. All of it is in my hands right now, so I have two options. First is that I keep it to myself and nothing will be known. Second, I go to the king and have you eradicated like rats," Leo spoke to the duchess with cold glare, making everyone shiver with the weight of his words.

"I just have to say they were just looking after my precious son, no one would believe you and even call you murderer, how about that?" the duchess smiled victoriously.

"Haaaah, you don't seem to understand, do you? Why don't you explain it to her, Mr. Duke?"

"Sending spies to land of other nobles is faux pass. It is conscidered not believing the other party as well as declaring ill intent towards everyone in the domain and their families, visiting or local."

"Huh?!"

"In other words, by declaring what you just said, you would make enemies of great number of nobles here in the kingdom as well as Ostilian and Sorcery kingdom's royal families."

"Graaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!! If you— If you just killed that stupid brat when I told you, nothing of this would ever happen!!!" the duchess flew in a fit of rage.

"Oh? Is some family matter going on here?" Kiira jabbed at the duchess with a surprised look.

"YOU!!! Just die!!!!!" the duchess brandished a dagger she had hidden on her body.

"NO!"

As she launched forward to Kiira, a purple light flashed through the room and the duchess' hands were cut off.

"KYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!"

"Shut it or I'm gonna turn you into minced meat," Leo glared at her and used his magic to pick her up, closing the wounds without healing them.

"Now you gonna explain yourself. It's one thing sending spies and assassins to my land and other thing is attacking my fiancée," Leo glared at the duchess in his hand.

"It—It's becouse I've sinned! I had a child with my maid… Kiira… that was my daughter's name… I had her sold as a slave… please punish me."

"Oh? There is another girl named Kiira who happens to be a half-elf? That's amazing," Kiira smiled as she walked over to Leo.

"Kiira's mother is an elf. Her father was a human, there is no way you are her father, so there is only the sin of attacking Kiira right now."

"As for me, if you were my father, I don't think I would even want you to be. Someone who would sold their child to slavery shouldn't have children at all."

"So. Let's talk what't going to happen now. Kiira, read the paper we got."

"On it!" Kiira smiled and rolled out a scroll with golden sigil, "I shall read his majesty, the kings, words. Due to the high number of spies and assassins in Dragonrose Earldom during Survival Expedition, which had royalty of friendly nation as well as ours, I give duty of finding and executing perpetrators of this offense to Leonard Hirano Dragonrose. So says the king."

"Oh no…" the duke, now his eyes empty, dropped to his knees.

Suddenly, a dagger fell to his knees.

"What… is this?"

"As things stands now, Orion will be held responsible as well," Leo looked coldly at the duke before his eyes drifted to the duchess he threw asside, "You need to take responsibility for him. Eliminate the source of evil, duke."

The duke, knowing good well that if Leo dealt the finishing blow, the responsibility would fall on his entire family.

"As duke Elvieren… as a noble of Ostillian kingdom, I need to punish evil that threatens my kingdom. So the law dictates," the duke took the dagger and cut off his wife's ears, a disgrace to elves. "I believe she should be punished in the royal capital, seen infront of all kingdom."

So he wants to show that she is the only one who commited offense and that he and his son are the ones who brought them to justice. Leo smiled secretly.

"Alright, let's do that. «Grand Teleportation»" As Leo chanted the spell, everyone in the room got transported to dark room.

"Huh?! Where are we?" the redhaired maid asked surprisedly.

"Leo used his spell to teleported us to the capital," Kiira knocked on the doors and a knight in Palace knight garbs walked in.

"Anyway, this is where our lines part."

"I thank you for your cooperation, I will pray that you will find your daughter alive and well," Kiira bowed and walked out of the room, where they met with the Prime minister.

"Has everything work out, sir Dragonrose?"

"Yes. Duke cut her ears, so we can now be sure the Elvieren Duchy will remain loyal to the kingdom," Leo bowed lightly.

"I see, good, good. The Theocracy and Passurian kingdom started showing their horns, so we need to get ready."

"The saintess is comming here too, right?"

"Indeed. She will come durning the summer. So I would love it if you stayed in your land."

"Sounds like a plan. I have too much work anyway."

"I see. Anyway, there exist a chance she will leave the kingdom through your lands, so make sure you are ready for the chance of meeting her."

"I will keep it in my mind." Leo bowed and went away with Kiira.

The two returned home to see tea party held by all girls currently engaged with Leo and some Dragonrose fanclub girls.

"Wanna join them?"

"Yes I'm going!" Kiira skipped over to the group.

"Now then, we have refugies on the way, new villages as well as redeveloping the old ones and then we will have to build the highway into the heart of Wilderness. Aaah, my heart's pounding so fast! I wonder what I will find there? Interresting materials? Some monsters? Let's do it!!!"

END OF ARC 2