My group and I stayed at the Droman Capital for a few weeks, although we did travel to so of the neighboring towns to check them out.
We spent my 17th birthday there, with Empress Lysandra throwing a huge banquet for us at the castle.
Before the party even started, however, Lysandra called to the throne room, where a bunch of nobles from the empire had gathered and gifted an adamantite sword for my birthday.
It was a short, straight sword with a dark-greenish color that was so characteristic of adamantite.
Lysandra knew that I didn’t use large and slow weapons, so the sword’s length was perfect for , as I could swing it with one hand while holding my mithril dagger in the other.
I politely bowed to the empress in front of the nobles, not wanting to make her look bad in front of them since she was my friend. I never had a problem treating nobles with their own customs as long as they were reasonable and didn’t force .
That night, I went outside to one of the balconies to get so fresh air when lina ca to with a gift, which surprised when she pulled out the handkerchief that had been tainted with blood, dirt, and burn marks, now perfectly clean again.
"Huh? Did you make a new one?" I asked, checking my pockets to look for the old piece of fabric.
lina chuckled. "Sorry. I took it so I could fix it back up for you..." she muttered, softly placing her hand on my chest and putting the handkerchief in my pocket.
"I... My bad..." I said, apologizing for destroying the handkerchief in the first place and not telling her about it.
"Dummy, do you think I was mad when I saw it?" she asked, gently caressing my hair.
"No, I know you wouldn’t get mad about sothing like this. I guess I was just embarrassed that it got so ssed up..." I replied.
The princess grabbed the back of my head and pulled in for an embrace, placing my face on her shoulder since I was just slightly taller than her.
"If anything, I’m happy you kept it all this ti..." she whispered.
At that mont, I gently grabbed lina’s cheeks and made eye contact with her, losing myself in her beautiful eyes as I went for a kiss under the moonlight.
The princess had always been the one to initiate, but that night felt like it was my turn.
__________
A week after my birthday, it was ti for us to return to the Sephyr Kingdom before Winter started.
Jen joined us for the trip as lina stowed away all of her belongings inside her void pocket so she wouldn’t have to carry them around.
The plan was to go to the Sephyr capital and announce our arrival to lina’s family, but before we did that, we teleported to the border between the empire and the Illusive Forest.
Reinar had been researching a blue herb that ca from the area, but I knew that there were more materials that we could find if we managed not to get caught in any trap.
I wanted to build a road that crossed the forest and connected the empire and the kingdom, but I needed to find a way to completely block the illusions, at least on the road area.
After telling the group to wait for us, Vespera and I went inside the forest to look for more herbs, staying close to the border so that we could escape quickly in case anything strange happened.
I asked Vespera to co with because I knew that she was the most capable of blocking out the illusions. I didn’t know if it had to do with her being a Legendary Beast or her power level, but she could resist most of the antics that the forest threw at her.
Thankfully, we were able to gather a few more herbs before leaving the place and returning to our group.
One of them was a purple flower with blue stems called "Dream Flower."
It didn’t look like it would have a good use besides maybe helping people with insomnia, but that was sothing we would have to find out.
Another herb that we found was these red weeds growing close to the trees called "Vermilion Vines."
It was quite an unusual herb to find, but it looked like it could be extrely useful with its "illusion-blocking" capabilities.
After we were done collecting the materials we were looking for, we teleported to the capital of the Sephyr Kingdom, giving Jen a tour of the place as we made our way to the castle.
We could have appeared directly there, but we wanted to show Jen around before taking her to End Forest, where she would be quite far from other towns for a while.
When we got to the castle, Queen Diana greeted with a hug, which caught off-guard but felt quite warm.
I never got to feel the love of a mother in my past life, so the fact that the queen treated like her son was almost bringing to tears, but I was able to keep myself together as I hugged her.
We stayed at the castle for one night and teleported Jen to End Forest the following morning, where we introduced her to all of the alchemists who had been working there.
Reinar was locked up in the workshop, so we all went up there to see him personally, and when he looked up and spotted Jen, I could tell that the guy was smitten with love at first sight.
He stopped everything he was doing to greet the Droman alchemist, promptly giving her a tour of the workshop and a summary of what they had been working on.
It may have been seen as a little crazy by others, but Jen shared the sa enthusiasm for alchemy as Reinar, which reassured that they would be fine working together.
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