Almost as soon as I stepped out of the large double doors of the lord's mansion, my danger sense went off fairly loudly. I immediately stopped walking and walked backwards and back though the open doorway. Both Rem and Shera noticed and stopped carrying on and gave me wide eyed looks. I didn't have to say anything to let them know something was going on and I carefully put them down.
Instead of dashing out and springing whatever trap was out there, I took out two pairs of earmuffs, altered them slightly, and held them out. "You should put those on."
Rem did so and they fit right over her cat ears without crushing them while also covering the ear holes. Shera looked like she wanted to comment about how cute Rem was. She reached over to scratch her friend's ear instead and put her own on. They fit over her long elf ears and I also cast muffling charms on them, just in case.
I held up a hand in a clear stop sign and then pointed down. Both of them nodded and I smiled and cast a Sonorus charm on my throat as I stepped back out into sight. The danger feeling wasn't as strong this time and I knew it had been the sight of Shera that had caused it.
"If I could have your attention please." I said and both Rem and Shera winced, so I suspected everyone in the city could hear me. "My name is Atlas and Shera is with me. I'm claiming her bounty and anyone that thinks they can take her or the bounty from me, will be met with deadly force."
It took a moment for me to let my telepathic power out to briefly touch everyone's mind in the city and almost none of them believed me. I mentally sighed and pulled my power back, then decided to give them one final warning.
"I'm not going to knock you out, or maim you, or anything else. If you approach me or my party with hostile intent, YOU WILL DIE. This is your one and only warning." I said and cancelled the spell and stepped back inside.
Rem and Shera took off the ear muffs and held them a little awkwardly.
"You can keep them in your storage area. I'll enchant them for warmth and other things later." I promised.
The two of them nodded and tucked them into the square pouches on their belts. I had taught them how to connect the pouches to their inventory space, which had been an odd thing I needed to teach them. It was classed as a part of Devil magic for some reason and I had to share that skill with them.
Was it because they needed imagination to make the inventory magic work for them? I wasn't sure how I could find the answer to a question like that. I even shared the same sensing skill and danger sense I had given to Grayfia, so they would know where the danger was coming from.
I had also remade their equipment and improved it by leaps and bounds during the week off we had, not to mention fixing and improving their clothes and armor. Shera adored her new bow and the several quivers full of Tempest Arrows I gave her and Rem loved her lightning enchanted and spiked knuckle-dusters with matching boots. Her hands and feet were very dangerous weapons now.
"Are we ready for this?" I asked and Shera drew her heavily enchanted bow and Rem slipped on her knuckle-dusters. "Remember, these people want to take our Shera away from us. They deserve no mercy."
Shera blushed as Rem let out a cute little growl and smacked her fists together.
"I'll go first, then Shera, then Rem. Shera and I will cover Rem with ranged attacks to let her summon what she needs. She can use her close combat attacks if anyone is stupid enough to approach us." I said and they both nodded. "Stay close, take the high ground if you can, and give them hell."
Shera beamed a smile at me and Rem bared her teeth.
"Let's go." I said and pulled out a wand and a sword. I stepped out through the large double doors of the mansion once more and there was barely a tingle from the danger sense, which was off to the right.
Shera stepped out behind me and six flares of danger sprung up in the cardinal directions around us. "Atlas! I need a lift!"
I dropped the sword and cupped my hands as I turned and knelt. Shera stepped into the obvious stirrup and I stood and tossed her up into the air. Without missing a beat as she flew through the air, Shera drew two Tempest Arrows, loaded her bow, and drew them back to activate them. I knelt again to pick up my sword just as she landed on the roof of the mansion four stories up.
"I have the left!" Shera shouted as she aimed and fired both arrows. They flew at a blinding speed and split apart just before hitting their targets. The bright flash and screams of surprise and pain filled the air.
"I'll take the right!" Rem shouted and drew two crystals. She threw one down and it formed into a huge bull-like thing about the size of a car, only it was furred and had three giant horns instead of two. The other one was a giant snake, about half the size of the Madara Snake, and both creatures rushed off to the right.
That left the front for me and I felt a magic user launch an unknown purple and black spell at us. I let my reflection magic ring activate, which just so happened to be on the hand I held the sword in, and I swung it to make them think it was the sword that deflected it.
"He has an epic sword!" Someone shouted and a magic shield popped up to stop whatever that first spell was, so I cast a shield breaker spell with my wand and it shattered just as the slower reflected spell reached them. The magic user and the barbarian guarding her immediately turned purple and began throwing up as if severely poisoned.
"You shouldn't use a spell you don't know the counter for." I said and aimed at them. "Bombarda Maxima!"
The two of them were too busy throwing up to dodge or scream as the ground at their feet blew up and the stone shards from the explosion tore them apart.
"AHHH!" Someone yelled off to the right and I glanced over to see a short rabbit-boy impaled on the furred bull's horns and the giant snake had another rabbit-boy halfway down its gullet. The remains of two others were under the bull's large hooves.
Another Tempest Arrow light show appeared off to the left and I glanced over to see an armored dwarf with an arrow through his helm. He fell dead next to two others with arrows through their heads as well. The sense of danger dissipated again and there was only a slight feeling off in the direction of the market square.
"Do I take the shot?" Shera asked and drew another Tempest Arrow. "He's the last member of their party."
"No mercy." Rem said and recalled her summoned creatures to her side. "You two did great!"
The snake hissed happily at being well fed and the furred bull rumbled a happy growl as she pet its muzzle. They reformed into their crystals and she grabbed them out of the air and put them back into her pouch.
"Ahh!" A yell of pain reached us and the danger feeling disappeared.
I used the Accio spell to summon the remains of the heroes. When they landed, I summoned the used Tempest Arrows, repaired them, and recharged them with magic.
"Catch me!" Shera said and leaped off of the roof without looking.
Rem sighed as she looked up at her friend. "You're supposed to warn him first!"
Shera giggled as she fell and she just so happened to put herself into the perfect princess carry position. I handed the arrows to Rem and cast a cushioning charm on my arms just before Shera landed and I gently caught her. She beamed a smile at me and kept giggling, like she had gotten away with a great prank or something.
Rem huffed and handed her the arrows and then knelt to dig through the bodies and remains for their adventurer cards. She was not going to summon her snake back to look for the IDs of the two rabbit-boys, though. Those were well and truly gone now.
"We can keep those as evidence, just in case." I said and stood Shera on her feet.
"Why?" Shera asked.
"If they are bounty hunters, they might have their own bounties on their heads." Rem said and tucked the IDs into her pouch. "Atlas, can you fix the equipment? Some of it is worth some good coin we can splurge with back at the inn."
"That's a good idea." I said and used my wand to vanish the flesh and bones. "It also reminds me that I didn't pay for Mei to repair the floor I damaged with that Fallen's face."
Shera giggled and Rem gave me a small smile. We gathered up the equipment and I cast some quick repairs and we put them into a sack for later. Rem took out their IDs and gave me the brilliant idea to summon their weapons and other possessions, assuming they were in the city for a day or two.
I used their names and did exactly that, so we gained five more piles of items to add to the sack for sale and several money pouches. We would worry about dividing the money up after we sold everything. I stored the sack and pointed off to the side of the mansion and towards the southern facing road.
"We have to go that way for a while to reach Seplia Lake, since it's southeast of Faltra City." I told them.
"How do you know that?" Rem asked as we started walking.
"There was a strategic map on the wall of the lord's office where it showed the various soldiers were posted. Down on the bottom right was a marking of where they scouted where the elves were hiding in a forest to the east of the lake."
"I didn't see a map." Shera commented and pulled out a small sack of travelling food and started munching on a handful of nuts as she held the bag out to Rem.
"I don't think I even looked at the walls after what happened in there." Rem said and accepted some of the nuts to nibble on them. Her tail swished happily as she enjoyed the salty taste.
"I suppose I did cause a little distraction." I joked and both girls snorted, with Shera laughing loudly and Rem chuckling.
As we walked to the southern gate of the city, we talked about what we could do when we reached the woods in a few hours. We had to call out first to try and claim the bounty on Shera's head from her brother, so that quest would be finished and no one else would come after her. Next, we had to either fight the rest of the hundred or so elves, make them retreat, or run away ourselves.
Shera was reluctant to hurt her people, since she knew it was on the orders of her brother that they were there and putting themselves in danger in the first place. It would weigh heavily on her if more of them died for that stupidity.
We reached the city gate and went through, ignoring the longing looks a few of the soldiers gave Shera. None of them gave off a feeling of danger, so there was no point in confronting them about it. They all heard my warning and word had already spread about how quickly we dealt with the bounty hunters.
"The water's really flowing today." Rem commented as we crossed the large moat.
I mentally paused at that and then let out a laugh.
"What is it?" Shera asked and handed me a piece of dried meat to chew on.
"Thanks." I said and started chewing on it as I waved for them to follow me over to the river that led to the lake we were heading to. Instead of saying anything, I took out a copy of the small sailing vessel I had bought for the soldiers to use to ferry people to and from my island home back in Game of Thrones and set the anchor. "I just figured out a way to save us a bunch of time travelling to the lake."
Rem and Shera stared at the very nicely constructed boat that didn't look like anything they had ever seen before.
I set a gangplank down and motioned for them to go aboard. "After you, ladies."
Rem cautiously walked across the plank and stepped into the boat. "Huh, it's really stable, even though the water's rough."
"It takes really rough seas to make it do more than rock back and forth. It has great a ballast counterweight otherwise." I said and had to help Shera across, because she was a forest elf and going from ground to water was a little weird for her.
Rem sat near the steering wheel and looked a little eager as her eyes took everything in, even the rigging of the sails. "You could make a fortune from the merchant and shipping guilds if you shared this design with them."
Shera sat beside her and her arms went around her automatically and held on, like she was afraid she would be thrown off if she wasn't hanging onto something. Rem didn't try to pry her off or anything, though. She accepted it for what it was and her ears twitched only slightly in annoyance. She knew Shera could be overly clingy and was still getting used to it.
I set the sail, raised the anchor, and stood behind the steering wheel that controlled the rudder. I eased us out into the middle of the river and there were a lot of people staring at the boat, especially the soldiers. Apparently, it wasn't only the merchants and shipping guilds that would be interested in a ship like this one.
The best thing about sailing a ship in a large wide river like this, was the calm and quiet. You could almost relax, even when steering, and enjoy the almost leisurely way of travelling. It also gave me a lot of time to think about what it was I was going to do about Shera's idiotic brother, Keera.
*
In a nearby dimension a couple of hours later, the eldest Princess of the Greenwood Kingdom, Keera Greenwood, was all set to be married to her much younger brother, for the good of the kingdom. They needed a pureblood heir and no one else in the royal family saw how wrong it was for her to use her little brother for such a thing.
Why couldn't she let her personal guard impregnate her? He was from a good family and was strong. He even adored her and they had practised doing a lot of things together, well out of sight of anyone else, of course. She might not like the burden of leadership as much as her father; but, she also didn't want to embarrass him or the rest of the family... which also gave her the answer to why the guard couldn't give her a valid child.
A strange portal opened up next to her dressing table and she turned to see a group of three people on the deck of a ship as they stared at her like she was an impossibility. Keera's thoughts were only about how powerful of a spell it was to cut through centuries of magic built up around the elven city's barrier.
"I know this might sound weird..." The very handsome and muscular man said with a sexy voice that made her instantly wet. "...but, we have need of a princess to rule a kingdom that's lost its way."
"How so?" Keera asked and slowly stood. Her wedding dress showed off her massive cleavage and her long legs to great effect, or so she thought. His eyes didn't even flick to them.
"Shera's older brother wants her to bear his child to create a pureblood heir to the throne of Greenwood." He explained. "After I kill him and his forces, I'm going to revive him, revert him to his 12 year old self, and remove his unnatural compulsion to bed his sister as many times as possible to produce said heir."
"You want him to grow up normal?" Keera asked, surprised.
"If possible." He responded. "He might still fall in love with her eventually, since she's so great."
Shera blushed and ducked her head a little, apparently unused to the praise.
"The difference is that it'll be a real love between them and not something forced upon either of them." He finished and both the elf girl and cat-girl nodded.
"Why me?" Keera asked, genuinely curious.
"You're the first one we've found that wasn't an insane version of him."
Keera blinked her eyes for a moment as she processed that statement. She wanted to ask how many times did they try to find one and then realized she really didn't want to know. What she did know from that type of answer was that every male version of her was intensely after their little sister, which was the complete opposite of her own situation.
It was also a golden opportunity for her to correct her own family's thinking by disappearing on the day they thought they were getting their precious heir from her without her consent.
"I accept." Keera agreed and stepped through the portal. She wasn't going to pass up the chance to raise her sibling properly, even if he was technically the male version of herself.