38. Still Searching for Katalina....

After that, we continuously roam the city to find Katalina whereabouts ...

I can see that the sun is directly above our heads... which means we have been wandering this city for hours because when we left the palace, the sun was still far from above us.

I don't really remember where Katalina is in this part of the story... if I knew, I would immediately suggest going there, but all I can think of is going to Furias and beating him up, then forcing him to reveal Katalina's location.

But I'm sure they won't agree with my plan because they're worried our fight will harm other residents.

So I'm stuck wandering the city with them and listening to Vira's story.

Vira tells us how they will summon the primal beast Luminiera.

Vira says that to summon Luminiera, they need someone to be a sacrifice for Luminiera, although I say sacrifice but Luminiera won't kill that person.

Luminiera will only enter that person's body and form a bond with them; the sacrifice means that once someone is bound to Luminiera, they can't leave this island.

But the sacrifice can't be just anyone, that person must be a True knight, so Katalina is suitable to be sacrificed.

Vira also said that once she tried to offer herself as a sacrifice but unfortunately, Luminiera rejected her and didn't want to enter her body.

"By the way, young lady, I found something you said earlier quite funny," Rosetta said to Vira.

We all stopped walking and turned to Rosetta, waiting for what she wanted to say to Vira.

"But you said you became the lord while you were still a student, no? Being six years ago, it's funny that they made a child like you the lord. So was the previous lord a parent or the like?"

"Albion's lordship is not inherited. Upon the lord's death, a tournament is held. The winner of said tournament is chosen as the next lord," Vira told us how they choose someone to be a Lord on this island.

"Does that mean you beat Katalina?" Djeeta looked surprised when she heard this.

Katalina has excellent fighting abilities, even I and Djeeta struggled when training with her.

If I were to fight Katalina without using my powers and only using my sword skills, I'm sure I would lose...

"Not really... The final round was between me and her, but I never beat her... not now or ever," Vira answered Djeeta.

She seemed to be recalling her past, but I knew she was remembering when Katalina intentionally lost to Vira.

Katalina didn't want to get stuck on this island, so when she found out that the winner would be trapped here, she intentionally lost to Vira.

Of course, Vira knew what Katalina wanted because she's Katalina's number one stalker.

So she followed Katalina's plan and won without telling the tournament organizers that Katalina deliberately lost.

After discussing that, we started walking again and went through a narrow alleyway.

But as we walked, suddenly we saw many empire soldiers waiting for us at the end of this alleyway.

"Empire soldiers? What are they doing here?" Vyrn asked.

"Well, well! Quite the crowd we have here," one of the soldiers said to us.

We could also hear the sound of many footsteps approaching from behind us.

I turned back and saw many soldiers also approaching us; it seems we are being sandwiched between many soldiers from the front and back.

"What do you want to do? Didn't you hear from your General that we are free and have no more issues with you?" Djeeta said to the soldiers.

But instead of hearing their answer, all Djeeta could hear were their taunts.

"hahahaha did you hear that? They really believe what General Furias said?" all the soldiers started laughing at Djeeta.

"Look, dumbass! It's not our fault you fell for it! It's like you're cursed with stupidity!" one of the soldier said to us while laughing.

"Axion"

"Butterfly Effect: Dawnfly Dance"

Suddenly their laughter stopped abruptly, and everything became silent.

They all could see the soldiers in front of them suddenly losing their heads, while the ones behind them had their heads split and detached from their bodies.

Not a single soldier was left; they all died after Djeeta and the others heard the voices from Rei and Narmaya.

*Click* Narmaya sheathed her katana again after cleaning the blood on it.

I then lowered my hands after using Axion to explode their heads.

"Narmaya? Rei!? what happened?" Rackam asked both of us.

"They really angered me," I said to Rackam.

"Yes, as Rei said, I knew the empire had rotten traits, but I didn't expect it to be like this," Narmaya walked back to us.

When she slashed the soldiers behind us, she quickly moved from her spot to suddenly appearing behind the soldiers.

We couldn't even see when Narmaya slashed their heads because she suddenly disappeared from her place.

"Ughh, I feel a bit nauseous," Io who saw a lot of blood around her and the remains of the soldiers' heads, started vomiting because she wasn't used to seeing all of this.

Rosetta tried to comfort Io by patting her back.

"I know they deserved it, but isn't this too gory?" Djeeta said to me.

"Hmm, you may have a point…" I looked at the remains of these soldiers and thought about what Djeeta said.

"Djeeta, I know this is your first adventure, but sooner or later you'll have to get used to seeing all of this," Narmaya suddenly said to Djeeta.

"As a sword user, you must not have mercy on your enemies. If you're a little careless, you or your friends will get hurt or even worse, die."

Djeeta hearing that suddenly fell silent and thinking about what Narmaya said.

Meanwhile, Lyria looked extremely pale seeing all of this… I even saw her closing her eyes so she wouldn't have to keep seeing it.

"Hey... maybe we should move to another place first," Vyrn suggested to us.

"Vyrn is right, if we want to discuss, it's better to go elsewhere," Eugen also agreed with Vyrn's suggestion.

"Wait a minute, I don't see Vira anywhere?? She's not here!?" Rackam informed us when he realized Vira suddenly disappeared.

"I don't see her anywhere. Perhaps she went back to the lord's office," Rosetta said.

"But that doesn't make sense, we are surrounded by many soldiers, and suddenly she went back to the lord's office?" Djeeta wondered where Vira had gone.

"What if we go back to the castle and look for Furias there, he must know Katalina's whereabouts," I suggested to them.

"Ahhh you're right!!!. Why have we been wandering around the city aimlessly instead of going to Furias directly?" Djeeta held her head with both hands in frustration.

…I wonder what is going on inside Djeeta's brain.

<~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>

<3rd PoV>

Meanwhile, in a quite spacious room inside Albion Castle, three people were seen chatting.

The three people's were Katalina, Furias, and Vira.

"Furias... I do hope you've kept your promise," Katalina said, looking displeased at Furias.

"You know if you don't keep your promise and my friend named Rei finds out, I won't be able to help you,"

"Hah? Do you think I'm scared of that person? He was just lucky to hit me at Port Breeze, but this time I will pay him back tenfold," Furias replied to Katalina with a wicked smile.

Meanwhile, Vira remained silent as she heard Katalina's words.

Hearing the name Rei, she knew that person was not ordinary... especially seeing the reactions of his friends when he said he would destroy the empire's weapon.

But she had no proof of that, and it could be that his friends were exaggerating...

As the three of them were in the room, Rei and the others were fighting many imperial soldiers who were trying to hold them from entering Albion Castle.

But the imperial soldiers couldn't stop them, especially with the addition of Narmaya they could defeat them quickly.

Soon they started trying to open many rooms in the castle one by one in hopes of finding Furias or Katalina.

"Hm? There's an awful lot of noise out there," Furias was puzzled when he heard the noisy voices.

*BAAM* suddenly, the door of the room burst open, and they saw Djeeta and the others entering the room.

"Those brats are about as sharp as a bowling ball... Vira, your time is now," Furias, seeing they had arrived, finally began the plan they both had made.

Vira then stepped forward to prepare to fight them.

"Vira, what are you...?" Katalina looked puzzled about what Vira was about to do.

"Don't fret! You just leave everything to me, my dear, dear Katalina," Vira replied to Katalina with a smile.

"Katalina!" Lyria shouted towards Katalina when she saw her in the room.

"Lyria! I can't believe you're here with Djeeta and the others," Katalina was surprised to see them.

Katalina thought they had left the island and continued their adventure, but it turned out they were still here.

But this reunion suddenly stopped when they heard the sound of Furias.

"Nghh! Agh! How dare you!" Furias suddenly fell unconscious.

"Eh? What's wrong with that stumpy general?" Rackam was confused to see Furias suddenly passing out.

"It doesn't matter, Rackam! Katalina and Vira, I'm so glad you're both okay!" Lyria ran towards them.

"We need to scoot on out of here! Wouldn't want to get cornered by more imperial soldiers," Eugen warned them.

"Right. Let's go, Katalina!" Djeeta raised her hand and offered it to Katalina.

But strangely, Katalina remained silent while looking down.

"Lyria, Djeeta... I'm sorry," Katalina murmured.

"Katalina won't be going anywhere. She and I are going to be together forever…," Vira suddenly spoke as she moved towards Katalina.

"You see... there's just too much you don't understand. The days and months I spent with Katalina... The words we shared... Our woeful parting. But as coarse and terse as it may sound, I'll tell you this... Katalina belongs to me, Vira Lillie!"

"You strangers have no right to go on adventures with my dear Katalina! Only I have the right to stand beside her!!!"

Vira clung to Katalina and hugged her tightly, trying to press her breasts against Katalina.

"What!? What do you mean you crazy girl that Katalina belongs to you!? Katalina is not anyone's property!" Vyrn replied to Vira while shouting.

"Katalina! Let's just go, okay?" Lyria was still trying to get Katalina to leave.

"I'm sorry, Lyria, but I need to stay here to repay my debt to her from before. I was too afraid to take the title, fearing Luminiera's power that would bind me here. So I threw the fight. I made sure to lose on purpose... But Vira still adored me. Even though she knew the truth... Either way, she let me go without a single protest. But I knew that all this would catch up to me sooner or later. So I resolved myself to leave the crew and stay by her side forever, if that's what she wanted."

Katalina explained to the others why she wanted to stay here and not refusing when hugged like this by Vira.

"Are you quite finished?" Vira suddenly said to Lyria.

"Vira... I won't give up!" Lyria stared at Vira with determined eyes as she said that.

"Oh, really? Then I'm afraid I'll have to get rid of you completely!" Vira then unleashed her golden aura.

"Luminiera! The Lord of Albion calls unto you! Use me as a vessel to manifest your power!"

The primal beast unleashes its power as commanded by its master, the Lord of Albion.

"Wait a minute... Was all that stuff about sacrificing a true knight all a lie?"

"That lie earned me the empire's support and split you and Katalina apart.

Now then, if you refuse to give up... I'll just have to rip apart whatever bonds you have left!"

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA"

as Vira was about to use the power of Luminiera to attack everyone suddenly they heard someone laughing.

They all turned to the source of the laughter and saw that the one laughing was Rei.

"Hahahahaha, you're really funny. This is the first time I've laughed this hard since I appeared in this world," Rei said to Vira.

"Rei? What's wrong with you!?" Djeeta was puzzled by Rei's sudden behavior.

"What's so funny!? Why are you laughing like that!?" Vira looked annoyed as her threat seemed not to be taken seriously by the man in front of her.

But instead of hearing an answer, she suddenly saw 6 black wings with a hint of purple appear on his back.

"What's funny is the nonsense you've been saying all this time!" Rei said, then opened his eyes.

They could see Rei's eyes glowing with a blue light that made his eyes shine brightly.