A Dagger and a Diary
The D-day came, today was the morning of the third day of week 33. Today was the first day in eight years when Alex was exempted from mining.
The masters had already taken the slaves away for mining. The slaves gave me a strange glare when they saw that I was being left back inside the stable while they were being taken away.
A couple of hours after the slaves were gone; two guards came to the stable.
"Give me both of your hands." One of the guards said while the other flushed out a rope.
As soon as I raised my arms, he tightly tied my wrists in front of me. They then took me to the river without saying a word.
***
"Alpha Utility Guard, 23rd and 24th members." One of the guards identified themselves to the knight standing guard on the bridge. Meanwhile, the other was holding the rope tied to my hands to make sure that I don't cause any more trouble.
After seeing their faces carefully, the knight said, "Okay, you guys check out. You can enter now." He then moved to make way for us.
We then moved through the bridge and entered the castle. It wasn't actually a castle. It would be better to call it a small palace.
As soon we entered the palace through a gate guarded by a couple of knights, we were welcomed by a vast garden. The garden was beautifully maintained. We walked through the pavement and entered inside the cemented building via a small flight of stairs.
As soon as we entered the corridor, which was covered with a red carpet, I noticed that it was surprisingly empty. There was no one except the two guards and the criminal in the corridor.
The guards took me through the corridor into a room. The room had two brown sofas facing each other and a red table in between. On that table a spherical crystal ball was resting. It looked similar to the ones used for divination back on Earth.
I stood there with the guards. I was really curious what was going on. I was afraid that the plans were changed or the Princess maybe betrayed me.
As I was making plans to escape from this room if something were to go wrong, suddenly someone entered the room through the open door. It was a beautiful female in her late twenties. She was wearing a red and white gown. Her black hair was tied into a bun with some strands falling over her shoulders. The most remarkable thing about her was her siren eyes.
As soon as Princess Josephine entered the room, she looked at me and made a disgusted expression.
'This time I could actually tell that she's acting.'
She then looked at the guards and said, "Leave as alone and close the door as you go. I need to cancel the curse or I will also suffer a little when this son of a whore dies. Make sure nobody disturbs me or the ritual will be cancelled."
She then moved and sat on one of the sofas and commanded, "Sit!"
I didn't know why she used a command for that. Nevertheless, I went and sat on the sofa opposite her without disobeying her. I mean, why would I even do that? I had been sleeping on the ground for three weeks! To be able to sit on a sofa was now like a dream come true!
Thud! Thud!
The two guards left and closed the doors. I looked at her face and noticed her disgust changing into a warm smile.
Without wasting any more time, she pulled out two items from a purse she was carrying. One of them was a small dagger and the other was a small diary.
The dagger was completely black in color except the side of the dagger which was sharp and meant to cut, which had a metallic luster. It also had a metallic handle which was also black and had a leather strip coiled around it to increase the grip.
The diary was small, slightly bigger than my small palm. It had a leather cover and its pages looked to be made of paper. The diary looked old-fashioned but not old at all!
As I was looking at the items infront of me, she said, "These are the two gifts I plan to give you. The dagger is a ceremonial dagger which I received as a gift when I turned 18. Although I have never actually used it, I still have properly maintained it for ten years. It is a high quality weapon but I have better weapons now so you can take it.
"The diary is a monster encyclopedia which holds the information about eleven monsters. I have copied the information from the Minder's notes. Although her notes had information for a lot more monsters in them, I was only able to copy eleven. However, those are from the most common monsters' list so I hope it will be of help to you.
"I want to give these two to you but I don't know how you will be able to hide them from the knights. If you cannot hide them properly, I will sadly have to take them back."
After seeing the items, my mouth was literally watering! Her explanation of the gifts even increased the amount of saliva! I now wanted them really bad! However, as soon as I heard her last sentence, I immediately got scared and called out to my inventory and quickly stored them.
The Princess got shocked. She exclaimed, "What? Where did it go?"
Then she looked at me and I realized my mistake. I revealed a major secret infront of her! Now that the deed was done, I quickly calmed her down and said, "This is one of my tricks. I can store some things inside a hidden space. Please keep it a secret from everyone."
Instead of calming down, she exclaimed further, "What? Why didn't you tell me before? I could have brought more items to give you. I could have also given you a sword! Wait! Can you put me and my sister into the space and take us with you?"
"I'm sorry but I can't store living objects in it. Only the non-living things could be put inside it." I wasn't lying completely, it was a half truth. I have tried placing a Lakéqus inside the inventory but nothing happened. The vortex just kept floating above it. However, it had no problem storing plants.
"So you just make the objects disappear into this hidden space you can carry around anywhere? How does that even work?" she enquired.
"Did you not see the particles when the gifts disappeared?"
"What particles?"
'So only I can see its effects. This means that I can actually use the inventory secretly! If I knew that earlier, I would have stored more of the colorful crystals!'
I kept my thoughts for later. For now, it was important to calm the Princess. I said, "This skill comes at a price and I only have a small limited space. I can't tell you more as it will create problems for me. I hope you can keep it a secret."
Sigh!
The Princess gave out a heavy sigh and said, "Even if you are not able to help me immediately, after seeing your skill, I am now even more certain that you will survive. Since we are low on time, I cannot give you anything more. I just hope that my investment in you can save me later."
She then flushed out a nice big smile. Her eyes had warmth inside them.
I then also said with a smile decorating my skinny face, "I hope so too."
"Well, the knights would be arriving any minute now." Her smile vanished and she became serious. "You need to scream this time like you suffered from breaking the curse. Also, you need to act like you are really sad and angry. After all, you are being taken to your death!"
'So no sword then, huh? If I had told her about the inventory earlier, I would have taken a huge risk. In return, I would've also received a lot of help. So, high risks, high return it is!'
She then said, "You should scream slightly now." She didn't give me a command like the last time. It was probably because the situation was under control this time.
"Aaaahhhh!"
Without wasting any time, I recalled the pain that she gave me last time and screamed the best my acting could provide. After screaming for a bit, I lied on the floor of the room and started squirming slightly with a painful expression.
I noticed the Princess went back to her disgusted mode. As soon as I stopped screaming, a knight in leather armor entered the room. Right after seeing the knight, the Princess kicked me lightly and after giving a nod to him, she went away.
I then looked at the knight. He looked quite young and wore brown leather armor and pants. The most remarkable thing about him was a heavy sword placed at his back. The sword with his physique made him look intimidating.
The knight then came closer to me and grabbed the rope which kept my hands tied. He lifted me up from the ground with the help of the rope and said, "Let's go, you bastard!"
***