4: Erika Belldandy (1)

Elisabeth frowned as she wondered what route the "protagonist" would take, or if there would even be one.

"What are you thinking, Eli?" - asked Eric as he looked at his fiancée.

"Oh, it's nothing, I was thinking if we'll get lucky today and find something interesting instead of pure rocks" - replied Elisabeth while clicking her tongue.

Eric was about to say something else, when he heard the sound of soldiers yelling at someone to stop. He quickly frowned, because with how far away they were, there shouldn't be anyone in this area, so without thinking twice he got out of the carriage and walked towards the place where the commotion was, only to be paralyzed after seeing what happened.

In front of him, there were two women, the first was a pretty 15-year-old girl with blonde hair, she was wearing leather armor that fit her delicate body, along with a sword resting on her hip, although that was not the reason he had frozen, but because of the companion. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his entire life, long red hair, beautiful sky blue eyes, small delicate pink lips, a small nose, and a body that looked like she had been blessed by the god of lust, though there was something that was bothering Eric, and that was that this woman's clothing was basically patches glued one after the other.

After snapping out of his stupor, he walked over to the two women and asked what they were doing in such an inhospitable place, and he said this with his guard up because it was pretty obvious that something weird was going on.

"Eric, what are you doing?" - Elisabeth asked as she walked to her fiancé, just to be surprised to see two women in front of her, especially the beautiful red-haired woman.

The blonde girl was also surprised to see Elisabeth, though she quickly frowned as if she was thinking about something, which did not go unnoticed by Eric's fiancée.

"I was just asking these two ladies what they were doing in a place as far away from civilization as this" - Eric answered honestly, though his gaze unconsciously moved to the beautiful red-haired woman.

Elisabeth clicked her tongue before giving her boyfriend's arm a hard squeeze, who could do nothing but let out a sharp cry of pain.

The blonde girl frowned slightly because this woman wasn't acting like she remembered, though that wasn't important, after all, she had come for one reason, she wanted to interact with Ren.

"My name is Rhea Asteria, novice adventurer, and this is Erika, my slave, though she's more like an older sister" - Rhea replied as she introduced herself and her companion.

Eric frowned slightly when he heard the word "slave", though he quickly decided it was better not to say anything, after all, slavery was allowed in the kingdom - "I see..."

"What's going on here?" - asked a male voice.

The soldiers surrounding the two women quickly dropped to their knees when they heard this voice, revealing the most important person in the group, the third prince of the kingdom, Ren D. Bahamut.

Rhea's eyes glowed slightly, something Elisabeth noticed immediately, which confirmed that this woman was not an "NPC", but rather a person just like her, a girl who had reincarnated in this world, and from the looks of it, wanted to enter Ren's route, though it wasn't as if she could blame her. If she was the player, she would also enter Ren's route, because being honest, despite the difficulty, Ren was the best hero in [Dragon Frontier], he was handsome, kind, affectionate and loyal.

"You still don't answer my question" - Ren said with a frown, though his expression changed when he saw the two women in front of the group, especially the red-haired girl, however, his expression quickly returned to normal, demonstrating the enormous control he had.

Erika's eyes glowed slightly as she felt how this young man's presence seemed to be making her heart beat a mile a minute.

Ren stared at her carefully, because it was as if he felt a strange connection with this girl, possibly thanks to his ability [Tower of Babel] - "Who are you?"

"I-I..." - Erika muttered with a red face as she played with her fingers.

"Sorry for the intrusion, your majesty" - interrupted Rhea with a slightly red face as she noticed how the handsome man looked at her with a slightly frowned brow - "I'm sorry."

"No, you don't have to worry" - replied Ren as he shook his head - "Though I am curious as to how you knew that I am one of the princes of the kingdom."

"Huh?" - Rea was silent as she started to sweat because she could tell how the soldiers were starting to contemplate this very strange appearance of these two women.

"Ok, enough" - Ren said as he looked around - "I'm sure they are not hostile against us."

Rhea let out a sigh before smiling in the prince's direction.

Ren walked directly in front of Erika and placed his hand on her head, only to frown - "Are you a slave?"

"Here it comes!" - Elisabeth and Rhea exclaimed in their thoughts, after all, this was one of the first crossroads of this route, the moment when Ren would offer to free Erika from her slavery. If she accepted, then the [Sovereignty over Mortals] route would begin, which would be the creation and expansion of Neo Bahamut with the basis of the story being a Cinderella-like story, a prince leading a lowly girl to the top, and depending on the following choices, Ren could have more than one additional partner, counting of course the player's avatar, as long as the player's avatar is female. On the other hand, if Erika refuses, then it would start the [Blooded Lovebirds] route, in which Ren and Fiora would team up to destroy the beast empire and all its enemies, and in the process, setting the stage to summon the final boss of the game.

"Y-Yes..." - Erika muttered as she lowered her head with tears in her eyes. Her life had been a cruel succession of events.

From a very young age, Erika had been a beautiful girl, to the point that many nobles had indicated that they wanted to make her their children's concubine, or even take her under their wings so that she would be their mistress in the future. Her parents refused, but this triggered her first tragedy.

One winter night, thieves broke into her home and kidnapped her after killing her parents, but during the transfer, she heard how she had been marked as a target by a nobleman, however, seeing her appearance, the thieves decided it was better to sell her at the auction.

After those events, Erika was sold to a high-ranking slaver, and trained to please her future master. She refused this, knowing that her "owner" would not beat her for fear of harming her and making her value go down, which is why he changed his approach, and tortured her psychologically.

Erika still had nightmares of those events as her willpower waned.

As time passed, she accepted her fate as a slave and passed the training, her only consolation being that her purity had remained intact so that her market value remained higher.

Erika had given up hope, until one day, a girl much younger than her appeared and decided to buy her for a much lower price than her "master" had thought, which left her confused, after all, she was aware of her appearance.

She quickly discovered the name of her new owner. Rhea Asteria, and it seemed that she had managed to convince her previous owner to sell her much cheaper, after hearing some information.

After making sure no one was following them, the two began their journey through extremely dangerous areas, until they reached a village on the edge of Surt.

Erika felt a cold shiver run down her back, because her new master had not mentioned the reason for her arrival in this dangerous place, still, she did not ask, after all, she was a simple slave, a plaything for her master's enjoyment, or at least it was so until she came across a strange group, which seemed to be composed of trained soldiers escorting a nobleman, though this filled her with curiosity.

What was a nobleman doing in this place?

The two walked up to the group and a slight tremor ran through her body as she was surrounded by these men who looked like criminals, at least until a handsome blond boy about her age appeared.

The boy asked about their presences and her master introduced herself.

The blond boy was still a bit confused, and honestly it wasn't like she could blame him, I mean, Erika would be too if two strangers showed up in such a godforsaken place.