When Matheus saw his little brother flying through the air chasing after the demons who he thought were preparing to attack him and his group, he stared blankly for a moment when he saw an expression he would normally not be able to see on a demon"s face. It was fear. That"s right. The demons were currently fleeing away in terror at his little brother. Matheus didn"t know what went down that led to Cecil furiously chasing after the demons, however, before he could call out to his little brother, his brother"s figure suddenly sped up and disappeared from sight.
"Come on, where did all your s.p.u.n.k from before disappear to?! FIGHT ME!"
It seemed that his little brother was a little bit too enraged to notice that there were humans just beneath him. Matheus saw Cecil continue chasing after the demons while sending blasts and energy waves of mana at them from behind.
Matheus already saw that the demons" flight speeds weren"t even as fast as Cecil"s but with the demons being spread out and fleeing in different directions, his little brother had to take care of them slowly.
Well, slow was only relative to Cecil"s normal speed of wiping out a bunch of monsters. He was still clearing away the demons in droves and it caused the humans down below to watch in awe at the spectacle of a singular human trampling on the fearsome demons.
Matheus was about to chase after Cecil when he noticed his little brother getting farther and farther away but then he noticed a large silver wolf running in the sky and called out to him.
"SILV, DOWN HERE!"
He roared out as loud as he could and fortunately, Silver had heard him.
"Oh, it"s big bro Matty!" Silver said as he saw Matheus waving at them from the ground.
Lucia immediately looked around and asked, "Where?"
"Down, there, to our left!"
"I see him, hurry and get down. We"ll protect brother Matheus from the demons, just in case some of them slip through Cel"s pursuit."
Silver immediately flew down and landed right before Matheus. Lucia and Yuna who were riding him jumped down before Silver transformed himself back into his human form.
At the back, when Celestina saw Matheus call out to the wolf in the air she immediately had everyone from Cecilia"s guard unit stop themselves from doing anything rash. When they saw the wolf suddenly turn into a human it was all the more puzzling for them.
"We finally found you, brother Matheus," Lucia said.
"Ah, yeah, I just saw Cecil earlier. What the heck happened?"
"Well, it"s a long story..."
Lucia had a wry smile plastered to her face and Matheus knew that it was probably just his brother being his brother so he didn"t ask any further. Lucia then saw the formation of humans nearby and asked, "Are they with you, brother Matheus?"
"Ah, yes. We originally saw the demons heading our way and were preparing for an attack. Who knew that it was because my little brother was chasing after them that they were even rushing in our direction."
"Ahaha... s-sorry about that, but it wasn"t our fault. We were just combing through the area earlier in search of you, brother Matheus, when we encountered a large group of demons."
"How did you know—"
"Cel"s already seen pictures of all the races of the demon continent back in the library. How did he remember all of that? Don"t ask me. He"s your brother..."
"And he"s your husband... well, anyway, what did you guys do?"
"Well...we did what anyone else...wouldn"t have done..."
"Huh?"
"Boss thought that it would be a good idea to go greet and befriend them!" Silver added with a laugh.
Celestina, Cecilia, Oscar, and Commander Bart had just walked over but when they heard Silver"s loud exclamation, they couldn"t help but stumble in their steps. Even Matheus was wide-eyed at Silver"s words.
"W-what?!"
"Well, we didn"t know if they were enemies or not, so Cel decided to see for himself... and the outcome...as you can see, didn"t end well for the demons," Lucia said with a sigh.
"Jeez..."
"Uhm, excuse me for cutting in, but shouldn"t you know that the demons are a warmongering race? It would be quite foolish for us humans to even try and a.s.sociate with them," Cecilia said from behind Matheus.
Lucia and everyone else turned their attention back to Cecilia and the other 3 before turning back to Matheus and asking, "Who are they big brother Matheus?"
Matheus turned around and saw Celestina and the rest were already behind him. He noticed that the guard and aerial units were placed on standby near the landwyrm. He started introducing everyone one by one.
"Lucia, Yuna, Silv, this is Lady Cecilia, Sir Oscar, and Sir Bart, I had the pleasure to meet with them back in Revertia"s capital city. Oh, and this is—" Matheus said while gently pulling Celestina in front of him. "—Celestina, she"ll be in our care from now on."
"It"s nice to meet you, I"m Celestina Clarence," the girl introduced gracefully.
"h.e.l.lo, I"m Lucia Silvaria, and this is Silver and Yuna! It"s a pleasure to meet you—ah, big brother Matheus! What do you mean she"ll be in our care—d-don"t tell me..."
Matheus grinned and nodded. Silver immediately grinned widely at him and said, "Congrats big bro Matty! Hahaha, it"s about time!"
"Congratulations brother Matheus," Lucia also added.
"H-hey, it"s nothing like that yet. She"s only my girlfriend..."
"Well, that"s still a step forward. And now Cel won"t be able to bother you anymore."
"Y-yeah..."
"Perfect timing as well, mother was getting worried that you wouldn"t be able to find someone and was just about to announce to the kingdom about a matchmaking event for the future king."
"T-that"s a bit excessive..."
"Well, you know how mother can be. Oh yeah, we also finished the teleportation gate and she"s already started preparing for Cel"s homecoming, Seri"s pregnancy celebration, and the welcoming banquet for our friends from Anglaria. It"s going to be a 3-in-1 celebration and let me tell you, it"s like Mother"s preparing for a festival or something..." Lucia said.
"...So if she was going to add in the matchmaking event then it would—"
"Be a 4-in-1 event..."
"..." Matheus began pinching his brows when he heard this.
"Well, now it"ll only be a 3-in-1 festival so we should head back as soon as possible."
"Mhm, but where"s Cecil?"
"Let"s just wait?"
"Okay..."
Oscar and Bart remained respectfully behind Cecilia throughout the entire exchange, but they were somewhat surprised to find out that Matheus was actually some important figure from another kingdom.
More importantly, from what the girl named Lucia had just said, their mother was going to make some kind of nationwide matchmaking for the future king which she pointed towards Matheus himself so they were even more surprised at this.
Only Cecilia and Celestina weren"t all that surprised since Matheus had already informed them about his status in his own kingdom. He was the crown prince now after his little brother who was supposed to be the next heir renounced his rights to the throne.
What surprised them more wasn"t the fact that Matheus was a prince but the fact that his little brother, who was supposed to be the next king, had actually turned down that right. Of course, they were still surprised that Matheus was actually a prince.
When they remembered that time when they were setting out from Central Light City and his adamant refusal of going into the city, they now understood why. Matheus wanted to play adventurer and ditched his escort unit.
Everyone made their way to the landwyrm while Oscar and Bart went to rally their soldiers and positioned them to guard the area. The threat was no longer present but being careful was always good.
Lucia had a couple of questions that she wanted to ask and the best people to ask were undoubtedly Celestina and Cecilia. After hearing that Cecilia was a high priestess of the Revero Church, she immediately knew that she found just the right person.
"Uhm, Priestess Cecilia?"
"You can call me Cecilia~"
"Ah, okay. I want to ask. Why are there demons roaming around your lands?"
Lucia"s question immediately caused Cecilia, her sister, and the commanders to go mum. Her question was a pretty difficult one to answer.
"Well, it"s a matter of security for all of us humans so I might as well answer."
Lucia and Matheus placed their full attention onto Cecilia now. Matheus had wanted to ask the very same question a while back, but he had been preoccupied with training and flirting around with Celestina so it sort of slipped his mind.
It was only after he saw the demons again did he remember, and now that Lucia had asked the question for him, he naturally wanted to hear the answer. Seeing demons in the human continent was something that shouldn"t happen since the two race"s lands were separated by a large stormy ocean that raged all year round that very much limited all forms of aerial and marine travels.
"A few years ago, we noticed that the Malestrom Ocean had calmed down and the everlasting storms began stopping. We first sent a few airships out to scout the ocean waters and noticed that the phenomenon was happening throughout the entire ocean. Only some parts deep within the uncharted areas were still raging with storms but a good part of the ocean had calmed down."
"Okay..."
"We continued exploring for the past few years and eventually, some of our more courageous pilots stumbled upon land. They were only a chain of islands at first that had nothing but animals and monsters inhabiting them and the islands led to vaster landma.s.s. Naturally, we scoured the lands for resources and we did found a mana vein there that was pretty vast. However what we didn"t know at that time was that the vast landma.s.s was actually the Helaife Continent..."
"So eventually, your people encountered the demons," Lucia said.
"Yes, we encountered them. The mana vein was located inside the Ash Demons" lands and they naturally wanted to take control of the mine. We resisted but as you can see, our people lost."
"So your people fled and the demons chased after them. Eventually, they managed to find a route back to Midgard which explains why they"re now here..."
"Yes, that"s right..."
"Hmmm... but a mana vein on the Helaife continent which is supposed to be barren..."
"Well, no one really knows how the Helaife continent is since they were disconnected from the rest of the world, being surrounded by stormy seas and all."
"Yeah...maybe the continent isn"t as barren as the records state them to be."
"Well, all we know is that after the spirit race separated themselves from the rest of the Helaife Continent, the warmongering demons continued to wage war against each other, gradually destroying any resemblance of healthy and fertile lands, turning the entire continent into a battle-scarred and barren wasteland. Maybe something changed?"
"Most likely, the demons may have stopped warring with each other after seeing that their own home was being destroyed in the process."
"Mhm... I"m Cecilia, by the way, I couldn"t properly introduce myself earlier..., it"s nice to meet you."
"I"m Lucia. It"s nice to meet you too."
"Well, Lucia, I"ve been wondering, but who are we waiting for again?"
"Ah, uhm, did you see the boy that was flying in the air earlier, chasing after the demons?"
"Oh? There was such a person? I"m sorry. I was behind the protection of my guards so I couldn"t really see anything."
"I see, well, we"re waiting for my husband who went to chase off the demons from earlier."
"You"re already married? That"s amazing!"
"Hehe, thank you," Lucia replied with a smile.
It was then that Yuna walked over to them and said, "Master, Master Cecil is here."
"That was fast, I thought he"d go and exterminate all of them..."
"That"s a bit excessive, and even with Master Cecil"s abilities, it"d be hard to chase after 100 demons that were running away in all directions. Please remember that his Mana Sense can only cover a 10 kilometer area."
"Hmm... well if he"s back then that means Cel already eliminated all of the demons in the area around us. We"re safe now," Lucia then turned to Cecilia and said, "Cecilia, you can tell your men to stand down now. My husband has already eliminated all of the demons in the area."
"Sure," Lucia replied. Lucia saw that the priestess seemed to have a question she wanted to ask but decided not to say anything.
"Did you tell brother Matheus?"
"I already did. Ah, there"s Master Cecil," Yuna said while pointing in the sky to the south of their location.