Caught in Time

Chapter XIII: The Princess of the Castle

As they proceeded deeper into the forests surrounding North Castillo, the sun was already setting in the west. After seeing what they saw, everyone was on high alert, but they decided to set up camp anyway to have dinner and get some rest. Dinnertime is awfully quiet, especially with Rosa being in the state that she's in.

"Rosa, are you sure you're alright?", asked Irina.

"I'm fine, Lady Irina. Thank you for your concern", replied Rosa.

"It's okay if you're actually not feeling well, just tell me. We can stop for some time to let you get better first, no need to force it", said Adran.

"Thank you, Sir Adran. But it's seriously not a big problem", she replied with a smile.

As the night was getting late, Kyleas gets inside the tent, while Irina can't help but keep worrying over Rosa and the two of them still sat outside near the bonfire. Adran was on high alert and kept looking all around the camp to make sure no one suddenly jumped on top of them.

"All of you can go to sleep, it's already quite late", said Kyleas as he walked back outside.

"No, you go to sleep. I'll keep watch", replied Adran.

"I already slept and now I'm fresh and awake *laughs*. I'll keep watch over the camp", said Kyleas to Adran.

"But didn't you only being in that tent for a few seconds?", asked the confused Irina.

"I put myself in the interdimensional illusionary prison and slept there for 8 hours. I'd rather sleeping in the real world, but hey, this is a special situation *laughs*", he explained.

"That was convenient", she replied.

"Rosa, let's get some rest. Maybe a good night's sleep is what you need right now", she said as she turned towards Rosa and smiled.

Rosa gently nods and the two of them walked inside their tent.

"Well, Adran? Aren't you going to sleep as well?", asked Kyleas.

"Sigh... Alright, just wake us up if anything shows up", replied Adran as he walked into the tent and patted Kyleas' shoulder on the way there.

As the night became progressively colder, Kyleas stayed outside while reading Alicia's notes once again to see if he missed some crucial information. After not finding anything new, he turned towards the documents and re-examined everything.

One particular piece of news article caught his attention with the title that said 'North Castillo Rebels slowly taking over, could they possibly be backed by the Gvazians?' He skimmed through it and couldn't really gather any new information, but it was at least worth noting that the Gvazians have possibly got their claws into North Castillo.

As he looked through the other documents, he detected an unknown mana pool somewhere close to their campsite. He stood up and immediately looked at the direction.

"Come out here now and no one would get hurt. My friends are sleeping right now and I don't want to wake them up", said Kyleas.

There is no response. Kyleas detected another person around, in fact there are two more of them. As he gets himself into battle stance, the group that had been watching them flee the surroundings.

"That was weird... Now, where am I?", he sat back down and continued examining the documents.

He looked at all the documents for hours and before he realized it, the dawn was breaking. Thankfully it was quite the uneventful night, but at the end he couldn't gather any new information. He noticed that Rosa was getting out of her tent already in her adventuring gear.