Royal Palace 2

"""Princess!!!""" said everyone out loud with different emotions.

Upon noticing her they all stood up and bowed respectfully.

With an elegant smile, the princess entered the room. Instead of a dress, she wore a loose white blouse and fit sitting pants that outlined her curvy but modest body. Waving her hand nonchalantly she told them, "You all raise your heads, we will be companions for the next few days so just call me Katharina. I don´t like being called princess the whole time so be at ease."

The room relaxed noticeably, and they all sat down. again, waiting for the princess to join them.

Taking the seat next to Simon, he took a glance just to see her looking at him, before quickly facing forward and coughing lightly getting everyone's attention. "How about we all introduce ourselves to get to know our strengths and weaknesses?"

"A good idea prince-" but before Simon could finish his sentence he flinched from a stinging pain from his hand.

"That´s Kathy for you S-i-m-o-n~," said Katharina in a sweet voice.

The ever-so-curious girl looked alternating between the two before raising her hand "Hey hey, are you two a thing?"

The room silenced as everyone is shocked by casual asking a royal about her relationship. Mavis who heard her covered his mouth with his sleeve and tried to suppress his laugh, the shy elven girl's ears turned bright red and covered her face while the bird on her shoulder covered her face with her wings, imitating her master. Meanwhile, the short young boy just smiled with a noticeable twitch in his finger, and the veiled woman just sat there with no reaction whatsoever.

*Bonk*

"Ugg!"

"It is rude to ask a royalty about her personal life like that." said the Patrus aka Sun Lion.

Rubbing her head with tears in her eyes Milly the cheerful girl rubbed her head, while slightly glaring at Patrus for hitting her. "Mohh, don´t be such a killjoy!"

Simon wanted to retort but got quickly shut down by a calm voice, "No it´s fine Sun Lion."

"Hah, take that. blehhh~" said Milly cutely while stretching out her tongue.

"Simon and I are childhood friends. We know each other since we were 5 and there is nothing between us... for now" saying the last part she stared at Simon and winked, while his face flushed a little from her teasing. He knows that she liked him a lot, but he wasn´t sure if he truly loved her back, so their relationship is now somewhere between very good friends and lovers.

The chestnut brown-haired girl squealed in excitement as she heard the bold princess respond.

"Ehem, enough jocking for now," coughing lightly Mavis stood up and looked around "I will start first then to introduce ourselves. I am Mavis Mevulus, and I am a Star Mage, Inventor, and other things, but that is not important right now. I am a former adventurer and am currently working for the Ferum institute as the head researcher."

"I will go next then," said the young-looking boy, "I am Fitz Dorer, but despite my looks, I am already 37 years old due to being a half fehm. My main weapons are two short swords enchanted with wind affinity. I am looking forward to a clean dungeon dive."

"Oh my, Fitz Dorer? The Guild Master of Featherwind? I didn´t know that someone as busy as you would have the time to go on a dungeon dive with us." said princess Katharina with a slightly shooked face.

Putting on a business smile Fitz turned towards her. "I am indeed busy, but the king called a favor in, and as I still owed him something I couldn´t refuse him when he asked me to accompany his daughter in a dungeon dive."

With a nod, she looked at the person to Fitz´s right who is the veiled beauty. Standing up she looked in the round before saying emotionlessly, "Eliza Shades, scout, shadow affinity," and sat back down.

Recognizing the name Mavis's eyes widen a little bit as he stared at her.

Feeling someone starring at her she turned towards Mavis before closing her eyes and sitting back down.

"I guess it´s my turn now. I am Patrus Glorios, the S rank adventurer Sun Lion, and I will be our vanguard and tank."

Before Parus could even sit down the cheerful chestnut-haired girl stood up and maid a cute pose. "Hai hai, I am Milly Inos, also an S rank adventurer known as sweet pain. I like cute and fluffy things and squashing monsters. My favorite color is red, but I also like white and pink, not black though. It doesn´t look good at me... Oh, and I will be our damage dealer as well as support. I´m looking forward to getting to know you all! Oh, and my age is a secreate~" Ending her speech with a bright smile she sat back down.

Parus just sighed at her antics as he already knows her since they already went on a few missions together.

Finishing her introduction everyone looked at the shy blond elven girl who quivered in her seat. Taking a deep breath she stood up and spook in a meek voice, "Eh... I am Fines Aries, a high elf and an adventurer... My adventurer name is... emm... it´s eagle eye... as I am good with the bow... and I will be our sharpshooter." sitting down she stared nervously on the ground, before feeling a hand holding hers. Looking up she could see the cheerful bundle of energy smiling at her. "Don´t worry so much. We will be partners for the next few days so you don´t have to be so nervous. We won´t be eating you up... Well, maybe the young man there." pointing at Simon.

"Wha- no I wouldn´t... but she is quite cute..." said Simon while whispering the last part to himself.

Feeling a sudden chill running down his spine, he turned towards Kathy who was smiling at him with closed eyes, before standing up as it was now her turn, "you probably already know who I am, but I am going to introduce myself again. I am the second princess Katharina Vexia, the second princess of the Vexia kingdom, and a sword mage and am wielding a rapier."

"Guess I am the last one... Ehem, I am Simon Ferum, a became a Spirit Mage of the Ferum institute, but I am also a researcher under Mavis. My role will be to document everything that happens in the dungeon with Mavis. As I´m only level 77 I will be relying on you all, so I am apologizing in advance for the inconvenience."

*Whistle* "don´t sell yourself short, young Simon. Level 77 for your age is already impressive and you aren´t even a full-time adventurer to raise your levels. Not to mention that spirit mages are quite rare nowadays." said the muscular Patrus.

"Have more confidence in yourself Simon." whispered Kathy so that only Simon could hear, "after all I was the one that trained you."

'Hmm, the group that the king put together is truly wonderful. We have one of the most robust adventurers in Vextia, the guild master of Featherwind, the battle maniac sweet pain, the high elven adventurer eagle eye, the genius sword princess, and a spirit mage.'

"Now that we are finished introducing ourselves I will be briefly talking about our dive. As I have already mentioned we will be diving into the Woodland dungeon tomorrow at sunrise. We will be in the dungeon for at least 3 days and up to a week if everything goes smoothly, but with the unpredictable behaviors inside the dungeon prepare to stay longer. Our main goal is to locate and capture a new spawned monster and bring it back alive in one piece. We think it is still on the upper floor. Our secondary goal is to help the queen bee Nira, who is the guardian of the surrounding flower field where the dungeon is located, to reduce the monster numbers in the upper floors so that we reduce the chance of a stampede breaking out. Any questions?"

"Why is capturing this monster such a big deal? Isn´t it a bit overkill to dive into the dungeon just to search for one monster?"

"I will be answering your questions miss Inos," said Mavis.

"Just call me Milly~"

"Very well, Milly. So in the recent dungeon dive where Simon Ferum was in brought back a Nagirus corpse and the autopsy showed that it was killed by solstice venom."

"Hmm, this is indeed quite a big deal," said the half fehm Fitz. "It has been quite a while since I heard of someone discovering a monster having solstice venom."

Continuing talking about the mission and swapping ideas about battle formation and planes time flew quickly till Katharina saw Milly almost falling asleep.

"Well, it is already late. We should end this today and get a good rest."

Everyone agreed as they were too a little bit tired of traveling all the way here.

Going their ways, all went into different rooms. Simon and Kathy who were walking towards their rooms chatted casually.

"... and then she just walked away but tripped in front of all the guests," said Kathy while chuckling remembering what happened at one of the noble's party. Both of them enjoyed the little walk inside the royal palace as they talked about all kinds of things.

Now standing in front of the room Katharina suddenly glared at Simon. "Why have you been ignoring my last few letters!?"

*Sigh* "Kathy, you are writing under your father's name so I couldn´t really reply and I was really busy with the rising mana levels in the dungeons. I am sorry..." said Simon apologetically. In truth, he also missed his childhood friend, as he didn´t have many friends in the institute.

Seeing Simon looking at the ground she looked around to see if someone was there before giving him a tight hug "I missed you, Simon."

Feeling her soft body pressing on him he wrapped his arms around her waist "I missed you too, Kathy."

Melting in his embrace she closed her eyes and enjoyed the moment to the fullest. She always felt secure in his arms, since she was always saved by him when they were little.

Breaking the embrace her sapphire eyes starred into his ruby red ones while getting slightly lost in his eyes. "But I will still punish you once we return from the dive." said the white-haired princess with a beautiful smile after getting out of the trance.

Before he could retort she poked his nose and went towards her room while chuckling at Simons's reaction.

He could only sigh tiredly seeing her playful nature. Scratching his slightly wavy short black hair, he entered his room mumbling, "I will never understand women..."

...

(An: Sorry about the info dump, but needed to introduce some new characters. Don´t worry as our little snake Raas will be returning soon. Just one or two more chapters before we see his side again. I just realized that I never mentioned how Simon looked like till now...tehee~ my bad. Oh and sorry in advance if chapter releases reduce as a lot of exams are coming up. And if I made some mistakes please point them out. Well, that´s all. See you soon and stay healthy~)