Chapter 96: To Heimdall Part 2
[3rd Person POV]
The City of Heimdall, the Capital of Gjallarhorn is located two territories (of a baron and a viscount) north of the Urdujan territory, that is why, because of Bakunawa's outstanding speed and the short distance, she was able to run (or fly) from Urduja to the gates of Heimdall even before the sun has fully set, that is also the reason why she cannot help but grow some veins on her forehead as she asked, her tone annoyed.
"What is the meaning of this?"
In front of her are soldiers, donning their armor as they point their spears at her, shaking alongside their whole bodies, however, they do not look like they will retreat even with their open display of fear.
Her icy gaze swept around the soldiers and mages in front of her, causing all of them to shudder in fright, they wanted to retreat immediately because even though they did not know who the lady was, the fact that she was identified as a projectile and not as a person of their homing spell tells a lot about her strength. However, as Bakunawa has speculated, they are trained to be the sharpest sword of their Kingdom and the greatest shield of the land, thus they stood there in indignation of their true emotions.
After a long bout of silence, a soldier gulped as he finally mustered his courage and spoke.
"Uhm... Lady, we are here bound of our duty to protect the capital and our homing spell has identified you as a potentially dangerous individual, thus if you failed to identify yourself, I am afraid that we have to take you into custody as an unwanted trespasser, even if we have to sacrifice a lot of our numbers."
Bakunawa stared at the soldier, her gaze still sharp and icy, but deep down, she finally realized why did Urduja offered her to ride a carriage.
_Well, what do I say, I am not used to these formalities yet._
She calmly opened up a portion of her dress that also serves as her scales and took out a letter with the seal of Urduja and Sophia, she then passed it to the soldier.
"Is this enough?"
The soldier flinched hard when Bakunawa moved her hand, but seeing that she have just pulled out a letter from god knows where, the soldier received it with open (and trembling) hands and looked at it, Bakunawa then explained her reason for visit.
"I am here as a messenger of Queen Sophia Demiurge and that letter is her response to the invitation of your King."
Upon hearing that, the soldier nodded, his expression now more solemn compared to before as he passed it to the old mage at the top of the walls, upon making the letter pass through a magic circle, the old man nodded and all of the soldiers made way for Bakunawa as if they did not just pointed their weapons at her just a moment ago.
_It is hard to restrain yourself in these kind of situations._
"We are sorry for blocking such important letter, please go ahead."
One of the soldiers said so as the letter magically flew back to Bakunawa's hands, she then sighed a deep one as she walked past all of the soldiers and went to the Royal Palace, this time, she is not using her full speed so she get to enter easily, however, upon entering, she felt a gaze land upon herself, she immediately squinted her eyes and as she was guided towards the throne room by a soldier, from the main hall to the throne, she can feel the scrutinizing gaze, but there is a problem.
_I cannot find its exact location._
She finally entered the throne room in which the King is seated and gave the letter to one of the servants who went to pass it to the King, all this time, the "spy" did not stop looking at her, and it also did not stop being undetectable.
_Even Kabuto can be felt to some extent... Could it be..._
While she is trying her hardest to locate the observer, King Roselle suddenly spoke.
"The response has been received, please convey that we will prepare accordingly."
Upon hearing that, Bakunawa who is in the edge nodded quietly and exited the room and after she have left the palace, the gaze finally disappeared. Bakunawa immediately reported her experience to Sophia, in the end, she added.
"Shall I test the waters? This person is most definitely a subordinate of Loki."
In which Sophia immediately replied: "No, there is no need, just go back here after you give the letter."
_____
Meanwhile, in the throne room, the King and his adviser are both looking at the letter, confused and suspicious at the same time.
"But it is not even a day after we have given the invitation, why did she have to respond right away?"
The King asked, and as the adviser, the bearded old man is the answered.
"My King, perhaps her god or one of the subordinates of her god gave her a hint about something that is approaching us, as you know, gods are unfathomable and might have hidden motives, like how the god of the sun revealed some of Sophia's information on us through his priests."
The bishops of the god of the sun preached some information about their newest neighbour, thus the King and the Adviser is aware of such, the King immediately ordered.
"If what you said is true, then the only ones who have the guts to "approach" us are the devils and vampires, call on the spies there and confirm the situation, as a precaution, tap the spies in Tydings Kingdom and Mayari Empire."
The adviser immediately nodded and saluted.
"By your will."
The King looked at his adviser, his eyes cannot help but squint.
_Gods again..._
[Sophia's POV]
_That should warn the King._
I sighed while me and Momoiro eat at a restaurant, Momoiro kept silent but the rosy cheeks of hers is an evidence of her enjoyment, of course I am also enjoying myself, though I do feel guilty that I enjoy myself while my wife is designing a blueprint.
The dishes are nothing special, of course to my standards, but hey, I am having a date here so I am not really worried about things like that.
The Festival for the conception of Urduja is yet to be over and right now, it is the turn of the restaurants to have promos for the celebration, there are things for couples, for mages, warriors and etc. though we do not get to use them because the "nobles" that we are, we were given free access to their food. Honestly, I really want to abuse such preferential treatment, but I have to remain just and dignified as the representative of my nation, anyway, after we visited several restaurants, our "tour" continued, I was given notice of the return of Bakunawa and also the "spy" that can elude my strongest soldier's senses.
That is most definitely Hebi Tsukaiza, but still, I am quite shocked of her anti-detection ability.
[Hebi Tsukaiza is a hero, a little bit younger than Urduja.]
Oh, so that's why.
While Momoiro is explaining to me the history of a certain statue, I silently smirked, it seems like I found the best experiment buddy for my study of dark magic.
In total, it took us almost until midnight to tour all of the City of Urduja, Momoiro's numerous eyes started to wane, a cue that made us decide to officially end our "tour".
We are already outside the manor of Urduja, when suddenly, Momoiro stopped on her tracks as she held my hand to stop me too. Oh is she finally going to...?
_But is that really fine? Considering that she is technically my sister-in-law?_
I mulled over such trivial matters, but Momoiro is unaware of such as her eyes looked directly into mine, for a moment I thought that she is going to confess, but it seems like she is yet to realize the complexity of her heart, she just said to me.
"Thank you for this night, I really enjoyed it."
I just smiled faintly and nodded.
"Me too, I enjoyed it."
She then ran off the manor as if nothing had happened, but I can clearly tell the hesitance on her every step, as if she know that she should have said something different, but she doesn't know what is that "something different". With that sight, I also walked slowly towards the manor.
_Now then, to the main problem at hand._
My soft gaze immediately turned sharp as I thought about the undead core in the possession of the royal family of Gjallarhorn, that thing is mine, rightfully so, and even though the royal family is unknowingly safeguarding it from harm, it doesn't change the fact that they have, at one point stolen it during the war of Elves and Undeads, that is also the reason why I have just warned the King of Gjallarhorn, surely, the basic operating procedure is to call on his spies in different countries and confirm if what country has some strange movement, I believe that information relay in this world are faster than I imagine but their reaction will surely be slow, primarily because Hebi is a hero that specializes in hiding, so me going there early will give me a lot of time to find where it is.
I am quite confident that the King is not aware of the undead core's existence, if he is, then he already drove away Urduja from this Kingdom, given that the undead core is a god's relic and all.
[In any case, I am sure that you will be given an entourage by the king.]
Yes, being paranoid is one of the traits of a monarch you know. But I still have to be patient, so we have to wait for tomorrow. Not talking any further with [Guide], I went to my room and saw Eleanor still working on the prototype of the rifle, I went to her back and kissed her cheek and whispered.
"We have to be early tomorrow, you can continue that after we finished all this matter."
Eleanor looked at me and then held my hand, she then stretched her hand and yawned before answering with a simple: "Okay."
I peaked a little on her work and saw that she is already almost finished, she only have the bullets or "arrows" to design, really, I have an amazing wife.
That is what I can only say before the two of us went to bed and slept as our final preparation for a long week.
The next day, I informed Bakunawa, Eleanor and Kabuto that they will be the one that will accompany me to the capital, and as I expected, the King gave me his fastest carriage, it is made up of two horses with some magical engravings to them, it seems like they are capable of flight, even the knight who is leading the entourage for me has a letter with a very simple sentence: "Your message has been received."
_He got warned, alright. And he is in quite the haste too._
I thought so to myself as me and my wife and soldier walked inside of the carriage, our next destination is the City of Heimdall.
[3rd Person POV]
About an hour ago after the entourage of Sophia left for Heimdall, Hebi Tsukaiza watched the "unicorns" as they flew in the sky in complete silence, ignoring the fairy tale like scene that just happened in front of her, Hebi Tsukaiza sighed, for she knew that her mission just became much harder.
_She really works fast._
Hebi lamented as she started to get away from the walls to start the operation, in her two attempts in observing Sophia, beside being the blessed of the god of undead, Hebi did not find anything that can indicate the strengths and weaknesses of Sophia, except her biological mother (that is in the care of Urduja), Hebi does not have any idea what other things can be considered a weakness to Sophia.
As an assassin, Hebi's greatest speciality is to exploit weaknesses, because of this, she completed missions like a cakewalk, but now, she have to face an opponent that she is mostly clueless about.
_Kabuto will probably be not the one who will fight me, if a fight will ever happen._
Hebi finally arrived in the front of the palace of the Royal Family, waiting for a certain lady to get out of the palace, this lady is someone that Hebi has been tailing all this time in order to learn all of her habits and effectively start her operation to retract the relic of the undeads outside of the palace.
Because the ancestors of the current king created a spell such that the relic will not be able to get out of the palace, as of the moment, Hebi Tsukaiza's subordinates are still finding the seals for the spell, thus she doesn't have a choice but to compromise.
Just as she was thinking as such, the palace suddenly became rowdy as a maid shouted: "The Queen has escaped once again!"