Otherworld Adventure

"Thanks for the help, lad."

"Yeah no problem... it"s what anyone else would do," Matheus replied before taking a deep breath to stabilize his breathing.

Matheus swung his glaive and splashed the blood off of it. He then took out a rag from one of his horse"s sacks and started cleaning it up on the spot. He was very careful with all of his belongings, even more so for his weapon since it was his lifeline.

Seeing the young man tend to his weapon, the old knight captain was rather impressed. The young man before him hadn"t even asked for any kind of reward despite having put his life in danger to rescue a group of strangers.

The old captain cleared his throat to get Matheus" attention but before he could say anything, the mage in the group stepped forward and quickly thanked Matheus.

"Thank you..."

Matheus was a little surprised to hear the female voice from under the cloak. He stopped cleaning his glaive and said, "I-It"s nothing..."

The mage pulled back her hood and revealed her face to Matheus. For a moment, Matheus felt quite shocked when he saw the girl"s face.

There was a nasty scar running down the left of her face down to her neck. It ran through her eye, but fortunately enough, there didn"t seem to be any damage to her eye. Even though there was a hideous scar on her face, she was still quite beautiful.

She had clear emerald green eyes and she sported a dull look on her face. Her hair was a pale blonde color that was cut short, only reaching up to her shoulders. The young girl was also a bit small in stature, but she was still at least a bit taller than his mother.

"Oh, I"m Matheus, by the way..."

"Uhn, I"m Celestina, you can call me Celes... Once again, thank you for helping us out earlier," She said with a deep bow of grat.i.tude.

Matheus was a little bit fl.u.s.tered at the gesture and quickly told her to raise her head. The girl looked back up at him and faintly smiled. It was then that another person walked over and said to Matheus, "Hey~ do I know you from somewhere?"

"Uh... pardon?" Matheus was taken aback as he eyed the newcomer.

"You look a little familiar~" The voice from under the cloak indicated that the person who was talking with him was another girl. She pulled back her hood and revealed her face to Matheus.

It was another girl who was just as beautiful as the mage. She was a bit taller, but when Matheus turned to look at her, he noticed that this newcomer had similar facial features as the mage girl. He was a bit unsure, but he felt that these two girls before him were definitely related and there was one thing that Matheus was certain of, he had never met with this young woman before.

"I"m sorry, I don"t think we"ve ever met but I"d like to ask, are you two related?"

"Oh, why yes, I"m this girl"s younger sister~" The newcomer said.

Matheus was a bit surprised to find that the taller one was the younger sister. It just didn"t seem to fit with their image, since in his eyes, Celestina seemed to be a bit younger-looking than her supposed younger sister.

"My name is Cecilia~"

"N-Nice to meet you, Cecilia..." Matheus greeted in return. Cecilia quickly took his hand and shook it in greeting.

"You know, you really do look familiar~ It"s like I"ve seen you somewhere before, but I just can"t seem to remember... Are you certain that we haven"t met before?"

Matheus gave her a strained laugh before saying, "If I had ever met such a beautiful young lady like yourself, I"m sure I would remember who you were, Miss Cecilia."

"Oh my, thank you~"

"So, may I ask why you were inside the forest and being attacked by that large group of monsters?"

"Milady—" The old captain quickly spoke up but was immediately stopped by Cecilia.

"He helped us so I"m sure he has the right to know."

"..."

"We were in there because we were chased into the forest, if you hadn"t helped us out when you did, my group and I would have most likely perished inside that forest."

Matheus frowned when he heard this, "Chased? Why? What happened?"

"I"m not so sure, we were on our way back to the Regulus Kingdom when we were attacked by bandits, who I"m pretty sure weren"t bandits."

"They were under a guise."

"Yes, after all, they were using coordinated attacks to lead us into the forest..."

Matheus looked around before saying, "Well, I"m not sure if those people are still present. I was resting in a place close by earlier and didn"t notice anyone else coming in or out of the forest..."

"Ah, that"s because we came in from the other side of the forest~"

"Huh? So you... traveled past the core area of the forest before you reached this side?"

"Yes, we were desperate to escape from our pursuers so we had to take the risk. Our group lost a lot of good men and women inside the forest. All that"s left is the handful of people you see here..."

"...My condolences..."

Cecilia smiled back at Matheus. She thanked him before continuing, "I thank you for your a.s.sistance, Sir...?"

"Matheus, my name is Matheus."

"Ah, Sir Matheus then, oh my, you really are a different person~"

"Uhh, I beg your pardon?"

"Well, you see, the person I met once before called himself Cecil. Like you, he helped us out once during our journey," Cecilia answered with a joyful voice.

"O-oh... I see..." Matheus felt a little odd because Cecil just happened to be the name of his younger brother. Well, there had to be many other Cecils out there, maybe it was just a coincidence.

"We had such similar names and the way he came in to save me was so gallant!" Cecilia said in a dreamy voice. Matheus felt a little bit awkward hearing her swoon over some guy who had the same name as his brother.

"If the person who saved you was my brother, then sorry to say, but he"s already married..." Matheus thought to himself.

When Cecilia saw the somewhat awkward expression on Matheus"s face, she immediately apologized, "Ah, pardon me, Sir Matheus, I was lost in my daydreaming again. I feel so ashamed..."

"Ah, i-it"s nothing," Matheus replied.

"Then, may I ask you where we are, Sir Matheus?"

"...We"re currently located only a few hours away from Central Light City, the border city of the Silvaria Kingdom..."

"Silvaria? Hmmm, I"m sorry, but it seems that I don"t know which nation that is..."

"Ah, well, this city was recently taken over by my kingdom. We were at war with Merkruz and an agreement had just been made a few weeks earlier so now our two nations are at peace with each other..."

"Oh, I see! Well, then, are you perhaps a knight or soldier of this kingdom?" Cecilia curiously asked.

"Uhhh, neither. I"m just a wandering mercenary, hahaha~"

Matheus wasn"t going to answer that he was the kingdom"s crown prince. That"d just be stupid since he wasn"t particularly close with these people. Also, he was currently acting as a wandering warrior, if he announced his true ident.i.ty, then it would defeat the purpose of why he had even started this journey.

"I see...a mercenary... does that mean we can hire you?"

"Huh?"

"I"d like to hire you, Sir Matheus! I want you to guard us and escort us back to my kingdom!" Cecilia declared.

"Huh, well..." He looked back at Cecilia and then turned to look at Celestina whose absentminded look seemed to be tinged with a little bit of antic.i.p.ation.

"Oh d.a.m.n, if I say no... I mean I saved not just one but two damsels in distress, I"d be throwing away my chance of getting to know these girls if I declined now! Besides, I don"t want to end my journey too early... Alright, let"s do this, I mean, I"m sure father and mother wouldn"t mind me being late, right?"

After rea.s.suring himself once more, Matheus smiled back at the girl and raised his hand and rubbed his thumb and index finger together.

"Oh my...all of our belongings—"

"Ah, it"s alright, you guys can pay me later! How about we get a move on? Those people that are chasing after you might just catch up if we dawdle around here all day."

"...Alright, thank you once again, Sir Matheus," Cecilia thanked him once more before turning back towards her group with the old knight captain who similarly had a look of grat.i.tude on his face.

The old captain saw his pretense of asking for money just for the sake of keeping his image as a proper mercenary.

Celestina walked up to Matheus and thanked him, "Th-thank you... Sir Matheus..."

"Ah, you can call me Matty if you want... Miss Celes..."

"...Celes is fine. Thank you, Matty."

Matheus nodded and smiled at the girl. He found the smaller older sister to be a bit more interesting than the younger sister.

He noticed this while talking with Cecilia, but the girl was most likely a n.o.ble. She had the proper etiquette and mannerism of a n.o.ble. He had met a few n.o.bles once before, it was a few years back when he first came to check up on his sister in the Regulus Kingdom.

Celestina, however, seemed to be much more easy-going, unlike her uptight little sister.

"Oh, one second, Celes," Matheus called out to the girl.

"Yes?"

"I see that one of your knights have been injured in the fight from earlier. If we can go back to the forest, I can create a wooden stretcher and have the horse pull it."

"Stretcher?"

"It"s something that can be used to move people who require medical care..."

"Oh... well, I don"t think that will be necessary, Matty."

"Huh?"

"My little sister will heal everyone"s injuries before we start our journey."

"I see... so she"s a healer?"

"Yes, she"s a priestess of the Revertia Holy Kingdom. It"s only natural that she can heal others."

Matheus nodded and remembered that his brother had been on a journey towards the Revertia Holy Kingdom once before. He shook his head and thought that it was only a complete coincidence that the person that once helped Celestina and her group had the same name as his brother.

After the injured knights were healed back up, Matheus lead them back towards Central Light City to restock on supplies and to buy a wagon or carriage for them. He didn"t walk into the city again in fear of being noticed.

The others didn"t question him when he decided to wait for them outside of the city. Celestina decided to wait with him outside while the others went into the city to buy their supplies.

A few hours later, the group made their way out of the city"s entrance with a new wagon and a few horses. Each knight was now mounted on top of a warhorse while Cecilia and the other 4 non-combatants were sitting on the wagon.

Celestina quickly got onto the wagon while Matheus mounted his horse and they started their journey back towards Revertia.

"We"ll head to Regulus first and use the teleportation formation in the capital city to head towards a neutral territory city under their control," Cecilia said to him.

Now that he was acting as their escort, Matheus nodded and their journey officially began.