The port town in Kal’Faan was a scenic place lined with pure-white buildings. It was early morning when an enormous ship entered port, its sail bearing the crest of the great House Melrose—a major noble house in the Kingdom of Claydale. Those in the know within the tradition-honoring nation still treated the Melroses as royalty.
Despite the hour, the port was bustling with mercantile traffic. The Claydale ship, having been granted priority by small, hastily moving administration boats, carried one of the kingdom’s foremost adventuring parties.
“Finally!” a medium-built, unremarkable man exclaimed, stretching his back and cracking his joints after the monthlong sea voyage.
He seemed to be in his early to mid-thirties, but in reality, was nearly forty. He also happened to act like someone even older than that.
“You’re practically elderly, Viro.”
“You have no right to call other people old, Mira.”
“What was that?”
The hundred-year-plus wood elf looked to be about twenty, and having been raised in a forest, she was still innocent inside. Nonetheless, Mira had lived among humans for over a century, so she’d essentially become a middle-aged woman; her youth was only skin-deep.
“All right, you two, enough of that. Get ready to disembark. No dawdling,” said Dalton, their leader, sighing as the pair glared at one another.
He was a mountain dwarf and over a hundred too, but what he really stood out for was his massive height—upward of 180 cm, unlike typical dwarves, who stood at around 160.
Next to him was an even taller human clad in light metal armor and armed with a magic steel greatsword. The giant man smiled wryly at his companions’ banter.
“Feld, you good to go already?” Viro asked.
“I mean, we have to find the princess. Also, Alia is your student, right? Don’t you think you should be in a bit more of a hurry?” Feld retorted, exasperated.
Viro awkwardly scratched his head. “Honestly, I don’t see the point in worrying about that one.”
Alia had gone through all sorts of trouble since Viro first met her when she was only seven. He had enough faith in her competence that he wasn’t worried about her. But for Feld, it was different—she was his comrade, yes, but also somewhere between an attractive girl who’d caught his eye and a little sister who needed protection. If she either looked or acted her age, he could see her as a child, but she was far too dependable, which made some part of his brain mistakenly see her as a peer his age.
“The princess is our priority,” Dalton warned. “Then we worry about Alia. Once we finish docking, I’m taking the baroness to the royal palace to negotiate with this country’s prime minister. Mira, with me. Viro and Feld, handle finding us transportation and supplies.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Mira said casually.
“You’re taking Mira?” Viro asked, tilting his head.
If Dalton was going to negotiate, Viro would’ve been the natural choice. And Feld had noble status, which could have helped with introductions.
Dalton’s face soured at Viro’s implicit criticism. “They’re not walking around out in the open, but dark elves exist in this country too. We don’t want Mira running into any.”
“Ohh. Yeah, makes sense.”
“I’m right here, you know,” Mira said with a rare belligerent smile.
The pale-skinned wood elves and dusk-skinned dark elves hated each other. This rivalry predated the label “demon,” and the mutual prejudice, stemming from ancestral feuds, was passed down from generation to generation. Though Mira’s hundred years of city life had made her less prejudiced against dark elves, demons were a different story.
One of them, a woman, had thoroughly provoked Mira on countless battlefields decades ago. Even now, seeing demons made the wood elf go into murder mode.
“Are we ready, Rainbow Blade?” asked a woman holding a leather trunk case and a parasol.
“Baroness Leighton. We should be done by the time we dock,” Dalton replied.
“See that you are.”
Dalton and the baroness bowed to each other, and Viro, who was very much not done with his preparations, paled at the indirect jab.
Baroness Sera Leighton was a senior handmaiden to the royal family and one of the knights of the Order of Shadows responsible for security at the queen’s palace. Normally, a higher-ranked noble would’ve been sent to negotiate with the Kal’Faan empire. But Sera was known to dignitaries of various nations and one of the Order’s most trusted knights. The king, concerned for his daughter’s safety, had personally arranged for her to go.
Instead of her usual handmaiden outfit, today Sera wore a dignified navy gown.
“As you know, our top priority is the princess’s safety,” she said. “We do, of course, hope to save her guard Alia as well. Nevertheless, bringing back the princess takes precedence.”
Sera felt cold saying that, having grown to care for Alia as a true daughter despite the adoption having been a practical choice. She had to compartmentalize, but...still.
“I expect maximum effort from all of you. I will do my utmost as well. Should any foolish Kal’Faan nobles interfere with the rescue of the princess or my daughter, I will end them myself.”
Dalton and Feld fell silent at the graceful lady’s unexpectedly radical statement.
Supposedly, Sera had physically subdued her son, who’d insisted on saving his older sister, before boarding the ship and leaving him behind. And Viro, of course, had worked with her before. He knew how harsh she could be.
“You act tough, but you dote on her the most out of anyone,” he muttered.
“What was that?” Sera asked.
“Nothing!”