Soft Breeze

Riding along in the carriage, it was only a half a day until Louis was finally back home in the capital. Until then, he could just talk to Stella to pass the time.

"Again, thanks for the ride. I didn't really have any money to pay anyone."

"Actually, it's a good thing you came and asked me. I had to go to the capital anyway to meet with someone. Need to pick up something for the guild."

Stella was obviously hinting at some illegal work for the guild of knowledge. It was funny how comfortable she was saying all that to Louis, who was an off duty Royal Knight. But, he wouldn't put a friend in a jail cell.

Stella, went on to point something out about the sky, from the the carriage window.

"That's a bright star. It also has a strange color to it."

Out of all the stars around, it stood out, shining red. Louis's eyes observed it, be he knew right away, it was no star. Anyone who's been a Royal Knight knew this scene all to well. It was sign of a summoning ritual, a forbidden one. The ritual's purpose it to summon a great spirit, and in some cases, the spirit possess a vessel, giving them powerful abilities. After the ritual takes place, a star will appear in the sky,they are called 'Spirit Light Stars'

Louis didn't want to belive his eyes.

'No....A Demon Light Star?! Why the hell did it appear? Those kinds of rituals are forbidden. Nobody is supposed to have knowledge on how to cast them.'

There was no doubt, something terrible was happening in the shadows of this kingdom. First the attack on the mansion where mercenaries were seeking the forbidden documents and now, a Spirit Light Star had appeared.

Stella noticed the stress on his face.

"Are you okay?" She asked.

The current situation in the sky was no small deal, but Louis had to play it off for the moment. Even if he brought the star up, there was no way to find out where the ritual took place. There was even a chance it took place towns away. And above all, it really didn't invovle them.

"It's nothing. Just got a little headache. I think I'm alright now." said Louis.

"Really? Didn't seem like just a headache. But okay, if you say so." Stella replied.

Suddenly, her eye lit up as she remembered to bring up something.

She continued, "Oh! I almost forgot. Remember those old rumors going around when you wer an active Royal Knight? The ones about a mysterious assassin, he was called Claire."

Louis nodded, "Yeah. I do."

Back when he used to be on lots of mission, there was rumor about an incredibly dangerous assassin. A man who slaughtered a whole team of S-rankers form the special forces. An woman, an eye witness came forward and spoke about it. In her words she said, "The way he moved, I never seen anyone that skilled. Not even Royal Knights. I blinked and it was already over, the whole team was killed."

It did make news article in the paper, but died down a couple months later.

After more incidents happened, resulting in assassinations of military officials, the assassin left a note for investigators to read.

[One day, this kingdom will know the pain it's caused to others. And it will all crumble, by my actions. I, Claire, promise to bring it down. Even the most skilled Royal Knights won't be able to stop my movment. Now my game begins.]

After that, his actions stopped and he wasn't heard of again. Investigators belive it was just some maniac tying to stir up trouble by taking credit for the assassinations. But among the Royal Knight's, information was leaked. The man named 'Clarie' had killed a Royal Knight. It was a sad day for those with the same tittle, they mourned the loss.

Stella went on the explain "There's been some word through the guild. I heard that this Claire guy has put together a strange organization of people. After all these years, he's planing to make a move. Or so I've heard. Things like these are probably nothing more than rumours. People love to make stuff up, you know."

Louis's came to a realization about the tenseness in his stomach and face. Noticing it, he was able to relax and chuckle.

"Yeah. I have a hunch that a rumor is all it is. Like you said, people do like to make things up."

"Exactly. Just so they can be entertained. It really makes no sense. Also, I heard about this tangr thing that happened in-"

The carriage roughly came to a stop, nearly throwing Louis and Stella out of their seats.

The young man controlling the horses in front, spoke in a concerned voice.

"Uhmm. Headmistress, Stella. In the road, there's...a woman. I think she's hurt."

Stella quickly stood from her seat, "There's a woman?! We're in the middle of nowhere, how did she get here? I'll go see if she's okay."

Before she could leave the carriage, Louis pulled her back inside.

"No. I'll check it out. Stay here?" He didn't want to mention it, but he had a hunch something was happening, something bad.

Stella realized the certain look on his face and sat back down, replying, "O-okay. I'll just wait here I guess. Make sure that woman's okay."

"I will."

Louis stepped outside and walked overt he the front of the carriage, where a blond-haired woman was laying in the middle of the road. She had old raggy clothes that looked as if they've almost been torn to shreds.

Louis rushed over to her side to observe her injuries but, it didn't looks like she had any, aside from a marking burned onto her hand. After seconds of panting in pain, the woman regained consciousness, noticing the stranger observing her.

"W-who are you? Are you going to hurt me too?!!"

The woman was about to crawl away in a panick, but Louis softly grabbed ahold of her, and spoke in a calming voice.

"Hey, it's okay. I'm not here to hurt you. You collapsed in the middle of the road, do you remember how you got here?"

His question struck a reaction of the woman's face, a reaction of fear.

"I...I...they...they took me away from…"

Shoooohhhh.

A firm but gentle gust of wind passed by. In fact, it was so gently that it was noticeable.

A rush of adrenaline rushed through Louis's veins, but he managed to stay calm, even after realizing that him and the carige were surrounded.

The very second the breeze passed, many figures made an appearance. There were easily 50 people, all dressed in black cloaks, wearing traditional white masks.

They had showed up so fast that Louis didn't even see them approaching, it was like they had been standing there the entire time.

The aura of these strange people sent shivers down Louis's spine, but made sure not to show any expression.

One of the figure stepped forward, speaking in an abnormally creepy voice.

"Would you be so kind as to return that woman to us? You see, she is very valuable to us."

"And who are you guys? If I didn't know any better, I'd say this was an outdoor costume party." said Louis.

"Who we are and our business is certainly nothing of interest for you. I apologize if this comes off as rude, but i'd like that woman back now. We have business that cannot wait."

The man in the cloak tried to act like we was polite, but his posture seemed to grow more and more impatient as the moments passed.

All of these people in cloaks had no good intentions, Louis could sense that much, but what were they really up to? Only time could tell, even Louis didn't have that foresight.

Finally, the man in the cloak reached his limit of patience and had an outburst.

"Get on with it! Had her over, please. I've grown tired of waiting."

The womans' face grew frightened, and she looked at Louis in a last attempt for help.

She pleaded, "No..Please don't let them take me. They'renot goog people."

Louis wanted to help, every part of him wanted to help. He couldn't just ignore her. Right?

Louis's eyes scanned each of the surrounding figures. They all had a calm posture,but Louis's could feel that they would kill anyone against them. As for their power, none of them were weaklings.

If Louis did as much as say "No." to the, hamr would surely come to him, Stella and the driver of the carriage.

Whatever was happening to the blond-haired woman, she clearly didn't want to go back with the strange people.

But protecting her wasn't a risk he could take while Stella and the driver were around.

His mind finally came to a decision.

Louis patted the blond-haired woman on the shoulder and spoke into her ear, "I know you're probably going through some issues that I'm not even aware of. But hear me out. As long as you stay strong, eventually your problems will come to an end. Things will get better."

He Brought the woman to her feet, handing her over to the figures in cloaks.

Then acting as if he never seen her, Louis got back inside the carriage.

Stella was quick to ask about what happened.

"What happened? Was the woman okay? Who were all those people."

As much as he wanted to play it off like nothing, Louis didn't have a good cover up story. So he only insisted to move on.

"It's nothing. Let's just get going."

Whatever happened had left a bad taste on his emotion, but Stella didn't want to question it. It really wasn't any of her own business, continuing the trip was the only focus now.

At her command, the carriage set moving again. As it did, Louis's eyes watched from the window, as the blond-haired woman wore a saddened expression while being escorted away.

'I regret not being able to help her, but it wasn't smart choice when I weighed the odds. There's nothing I can do for now. I just hope she can survive her problems until something works out for her.'

___________

Eventually, their trip on the road brought them to a stop. They were now in the capital.

Louis felt relief at seeing the familiar buildings around. It wasn't until now that he realized he had been a little home sick.

"Feels good to be back."

"I bet. You were searching hard for that guy named Faust Did you ever find him?" Stella asked.

Talking about big details about the mission were prohibited. Louis couldn't talk about the attack at the mansion or how he killed Faust. So, he was sure not so spill to much.

"I did. Finally solved an issue. Now I can just relax at home."

"That's good to hear. Also, I have something for you. Just remembered about it." Stella placed a small gem into Louis's hand.

It's texture was smooth and it was surely not an ordinary gem as there was a slight magical energy coming from it.

"What's this?" Louis asked.

"It's a communicator gem. You can use it at any time to contact me in case you need information or something. Or in case you ever just wanna talk."

'Communicator Gem' From the sound of it, he would be able to talk to her in real time, regardless of distance. But Louis had never heard of such a thing.

"A communicator gem? I don't think I've even heard of one."

"Really? They've been around for a good year now." Stella replied.

Louis had pretty much been keeping to himself and staying away from news in the past years, so hadn't been fully updated about new thing;s like this.

"Sounds useful. How do I use it?" Louis asked.

"You'll know how when you want to call someone. I already put my signal in it, so it should be easy,"

"I'll keep that in mind."

Stella had other things to take care of, so she said her goodbyes for now and got back in the carriage, taking off.

When the carriage left from view, Louis took on more look at the gem in his hand.

"Communicator gem, huh. I can only imagine how many other inventions I'm not aware of yet."