Chapter 138 - Reemergence

—Next Day—

"Good Morning Sleepyhead.", I whispered to Yasaka as I woke her up, "I just finished making breakfast, and do not want it to get cold."

"Mmm…good morning Cole…", Yasaka groaned as she slowly opened her eyes, "Mmm…I could get used to this life very easily."

Kissing her, I informed her that I had made us eggs and French toast for breakfast. Pointing over to the table, she stared at the table for a moment before speaking.

"What is French toast?", she inquired as I helped her to her feet, "Also, could you please grab me one of my robes? My body is very stiff this morning…thanks to certain activities last night."

"I see, well that is to be expected as it was your first time after all.", I agreed with a smirk, "I cannot recall you having ever tapped into the Leylines before so it makes sense for you to be sore."

"I was referring to your rather aggressive lovemaking last night.", she giggled with a smile, "Now I understand what the others meant when they said it was dangerous to go alone. Next time I think backup will be necessary for my own well-being."

"Seriously, you were the one doing all the begging and pleading last night for more. Do I need to bring up some of what you were saying last night?", I teased her as I grabbed her robe.

Pulling a blue floral robe out of her closet, I turned back and saw how bright red her face was. Recalling some of what she said to me, she shook her head in response to my question.

"You are going to keep those things between us right?", Yasaka asked as I walked back over to her.

"Of course, those things are only for me to hear after all.", I assured her with a firm nod.

Watching her tails wagging happily behind her, I helped Yasaka put on her robe before heading to the table together. Taking a seat next to me, Yasaka was drawn in by all the different items she had never seen before. Sampling the maple syrup and orange juice first, she was surprised by how sweet both items were. Telling her to try the syrup on the French toast her initial reaction made me laugh.

"Is so gud!!", she proclaimed stuffing her mouth with a whole slice.

"Yasaka, the food is not going to walk off your plate or anything.", I laughed as I wiped some syrup off her cheek, "You can eat slowly and savor the meal, I promise I will not take it away from you."

Looking at me with an embarrassed expression as she quickly chewed and then swallowed her mouthful of food. Taking a moment to collect herself Yasaka apologized for overreacting to the food.

"I am sorry…sweets and sugary items were a rarity growing up so having something like this got me really excited. All of these items taste amazing and I would love to share them with everyone in our territory.", she said as I noticed a light dusting of powdered sugar under her nose.

"You do not have to apologize, as the one who cooked the food, I enjoy seeing my labor devoured by someone I love.", I told her, "As for selling orange juice, Maple syrup, and the recipe for French toast that should not be a problem. We can probably grow orchards of Orange trees here, but the syrup will need to be imported. There are other sweet alternatives like Kuromitsu that you can make from sugar cane here. I have not made it before so we will need to experiment a bit on making it properly."

"You can use sugar cane!?", she gasped, "We have a lot of that growing all over the countryside. Once we perfect the recipe, I will share it with our chefs so it can be mass-produced!"

"That works.", I agreed with a nod.

Asking about other items they could make with local crops, we spent our breakfast discussing different food options for them to try.

—Thirty Minutes Later—

After finishing our meal and taking a quick bath, the two of us left her home to start our day. Saying her usual good mornings to the villagers, everyone looked at us with excitement which was a bit unusual. While Yasaka stopped to talk with a few people, I did a once over to make sure that there was nothing on us that people were finding amusing. Finding nothing out of place on us, we continued on to the Shrine where the Miko and Deities were busy cleaning.

"Lord Cole and Lady Yasaka, I hope you slept well last night.", she stated with an amused smile.

"We slept very well!", Yasaka boasted as her tails wagged excitedly, "How did our guests sleep last night?"

"They slept perfectly fine, right?", the Miko asked turning to the deities as they swept the roadway.

"Yes…the prickly hay was very comforting…", Amaterasu answered with a cramped expression, "It did not smell of animal feces at all!"

Pretending to be shocked by this information, Yasaka apologized to her in a mocking tone. Conveniently forgetting that the stable had not been cleaned out recently, she suggested they do that today for the animal's benefit. Promising to take care of it after they were done sweeping, the six deities resumed their work without another word. Seeing the smirks on the Miko and Yasaka's faces, they were enjoying this newfound sense of power quite a lot.

Asking Yasaka to gather up a group of people to help ferry goods back from the Shinto Realm, she immediately went to find the Elders for me. Watching her walk away with a slight hobble, Bolton walked up behind me and slammed his hand into my back.

"I heard ya finally kicked those bastards down a few pegs!", Bolton snickered, "Looks like ya also took the Hero's reward for a job well done too! Ya should know that some of the older ladies here were betting on if it would happen last night. As soon as they saw ya come out today, all of us knew ya had. That lass has a radiant glow about her today, she has never been that energetic to their knowledge."

"Are you serious?", I asked trying to hide a smirk.

"Apologies if it makes you uncomfortable, it is common among our people to leave the children with the elderly during the work day after they are weaned. Since it has been a while since a baby was born, they are restless and want to see more children born.", the Miko informed me with a smile, "Seeing Lady Yasaka's excitement many couples will likely start expanding their families once again in earnest."

"I understand that sentiment, my little boulder brings a smile to my face every time I see him. No matter how tired he makes me, he is the reason I get out of bed every day.", Bolton agreed with a proud smile.

Looking at me for a translation, I informed her that the little boulder he was referring to was the son I had with Bolton's daughter Gearnia. Showing her a picture of my son, the Miko's face nearly melted with excitement.

"He is so cute!", she proclaimed.

"Aye, that he is! He gets it from his Dwarven side, not from this shite.", Bolton jabbed.

"That is true, he inherited his looks from his mother and grandmother. Fortunately, he did not inherit anything from his ugly ass grandfather, that would have been a terrible stroke of luck.", I retorted with a smirk, "I mean look at him, he could give a Troll a heart attack with one look."

"Oya!! Fuck you!!", Bolton laughed as he stormed off to continue working.

Laughing at his reaction, Yasaka returned with several Elders to discuss transporting goods to the village.

—3rd Person POV, Faubrey—

Flying high about the capital city, Aultcray and his men surveyed the situation on the ground. Looking for any signs of enemy occupation, all they could see were people going about their daily lives as usual. Confident that the capital had not fallen into enemy hands, the group touched down a quarter mile from the city and dismounted the Dragon. Quickly writing down their findings on a piece of parchment, Aultcray tucked it away in the saddle.

"Alright, if something happens to us they will at least know we made it here alive.", Aultcray said, "If you sense our connection sever, fly back to Castle Town immediately with that letter. Do you understand?"

Nodding its head, the Dragon acknowledge the command and promptly laid down to wait for their return. Leaving their mount behind the group headed for the entry gate and got in line like everyone else. Quickly reaching the front, the guards held their group up to confirm their identities. Showing them his Royal Crest, Aultcray informed them that he was here on government business and needed to speak with their King.

"Join the list people…your messengers have not been granted an audience in weeks. The Minister of Foreign Relations has been handling all the visits for the King, do you want to see him instead?", the Chief Guard asked.

"That would be very appreciated, how soon could we meet with him?", Aultcray replied.

"Let me send a messenger to check for you. Please step to the side so others may continue into the city.", the Chief Guard said, "Davos, come over here for a moment. I have a message for you to run to the Minister of Foreign Relations for me."

Giving him the message, the young boy quickly ran off into the capital to relay the message. Standing off to the side for the better part of an hour, eventually the young man returned with a scroll in hand. Quickly reading it over, the Chief Guard waved them over with a perplexed look.

"The King has agreed to meet with you…", he said with a confused look, "Are you sure this is correct boy?"

"Yes sir, the Foreign Minister gave it to me himself.", the guard answered with a salute.

"Alright…well you lot lucked out today.", the Chief Guard stated uncertain what to think, "Davos, please escort King Aultcray and his men to the Castle."

"Got it…", the young man sighed having just run back from there, "Please follow me, My Lord."

Following the young man into the city, the group got a better look at the situation on the ground. While everyone was going about their daily lives, there was an air of fear around them. Noticing their eyes dart down every alley like a monster was about to jump out and kill them, one of Aultcray's Guards asked if there had been something going on in the capital recently.

"Yes sir, lots of people have been going missing over the past few weeks. It started out with only one or two people going missing a night, then about a week ago it turned into dozens of people a day. We have been doing our best to find out what is happening, but there is no body or blood trail to follow.", the young man told them, "To be honest, we are not even sure if the people are dead or were captured by disgruntled slavers fleeing from your country."

Intrigued by this information, Aultcray was surprised that something like that was not mentioned in the reports the Shadows had been providing his wife. Assuming that they were working off of faulty information now, he motioned for his men to stay on guard moving forward. Nodding their heads in acknowledgment, his men closed ranks to better protect him. Walking in silence the rest of the way to the castle, the group kept their eyes and ears open for any signs of trouble. Escorting them all the way to the Throne Room, the young man handed the scroll to the Castle Guards and promptly excused himself to return to his post at the Gate.

Reading over the scroll, the two guards pounded on the door and announced their arrival. After a few moments of silence, someone inside the room gave them permission to enter the room. Not recognizing the voice, Aultcray started to have a very bad feeling about this visit.

"Stay sharp and be ready for anything.", Aultcray whispered as the two guards struggled to open the massive iron doors.

Cautiously stepping into the room once the doors were opened, they did not immediately notice anything out of place. Seeing a few dozen guards lining the walls, an older man stepped forward from beside the throne. Rushing toward them with a mortified look, the man introduced himself as the Minister of Foreign Relations as he wiped his brow. Asking them what brought them to the capital as he shook their hands, all of them knew something was very wrong.

"We have not been receiving the usual updates from you in regards to our upcoming invasion.", Aultcray said closely observing the man's eyes, "Several of our allied nations have tried to contact you but all of us have been turned away. Is there something going on that we need to be aware of?"

"My apologies…it must have slipped through the cracks.", the Minister replied as the color from his face faded.

Hearing the doors begin to close behind them, his guards immediately placed their hands on their blades out of instinct. Noticing that none of the guards in the room reacted to this, Aultcray realized that they were not trapped there. Wanting to buy time for his men to locate an escape route, he kept talking like they had not noticed anything.

"I understand, the invasion is nearly upon us and it would appear that your military is not ready to join the campaign. If you have gotten cold feet, you should have let us know sooner so we could have planned accordingly.", Aultcray said feeling the temperature in the room begin to drop.

Going to answer Aultcray, another voice cut off the Minister.

"Did I not warn you to keep operating like normal?", the voice questioned with an irritated tone, "You were not trying to alert the other nations to our presence here, were you?"

"Of…of course not!", the Minister panicked, "The King intended to back out at the last minute, and attack Melromarc from behind while their forces were off-world. He felt disrespected that they backed out of a marriage agreement with him and that one of their nobles assaulted him at the Conference several months ago."

Before Aultcray could get a word in, the Minister promptly returned to where he had been standing by the throne. Watching a man in black, skeletal armor enter the room, Aultcray's group recognized him from Cole's description. Understanding now why the Minister was terrified they knew it would be a hard-fought battle to get out of here now.

"Where is Faubrey's King?", Aultcray shouted placing his hand on his hilt, "I have met the man personally, and you are clearly not him! Lord Cole told us all about your military group, why is the Wild Hunt here now? You left our world generations ago and should have had no reason to return here!"

"Haha, the human scum thinks he can dictate where we can and cannot go.", the elf laughed stepping toward them, "Since you asked, we are looking for a certain white-haired woman with immeasurable magic power. We detected one of her portals opening up in your world recently and came to investigate."

Feeling the killing intent oozing out of him, the guards understood he intended to kill all of them. Quickly getting in front of their King with swords drawn, his men told him to quickly find an exit to escape. Knowing that escape was futile, as the Wild Hunt could freely move around with portals, Aultcray told them he would stand with them and fight. Looking at the Minister and Faubrey Castle Guard, he demanded to know why they had abandoned their King and country to this them.

"King Aultcray, please do not hold it against us…", the Minister said apologetically., "If we do not do as they command, they will kill everyone in our country. We have seen the power they wield, the northern portion of our nation has already been frozen over because of our former King's stupidity. I am truly sorry for this!"

Summoning a giant battleaxe out of thin air, the elf grinned under his helmet as he charged at Aultcray's group.