Chapter 3: Formed friendship

"They weren't really my loved one but more like my capturers"

"Oh I'm sorry"

She thought of why he didn't just escaped then if he was that powerful but instead decided that there might be a reason he wasn't ready to share or maybe he has high levels of mana but just can't use it for combat.

"Since you're a devil, do you have wings?"

He asked to change the subject since it was getting a little bit awkward.

She released her wings and floated off the ground just for a second before she landed back on the ground.

"That's pretty cool"

He responded.

There were a few moments of silence as the two walked, Reniris didn't speak because she suddenly recalled his words about being in a romantic relationship and now that he was facing her way, she found that he was much more handsome than she thought.

Platinum silver eyes and white hair, his face was masculine enough with the perfect jawline. He was tall and lean and had the relaxed air around him that projected a level of confidence.

She couldn't help but blush for a moment before she realized that she doesn't know where they're going.

"Where are we going?"

"We are going to the Hendrix kingdom, there we should find an adventurers guild make some money and live out our lives"

"Wait aren't you a prince though, shouldn't we be going to your home country?"

Nate had enough time to search through the memories of the prince and found that going back would not be ideal. For one, he isn't the same person anymore, and secondly, he would probably end that kingdom.

Prince Nathaniel of the Dreyer kingdom was born without the power to wield magic unlike his siblings and every other noble in the kingdom, the only people who can't use magic are commoners, or rather all nobles can use magic but not all commoners could use magic.

Because of this, if you are a noble that can not use magic, then it is assumed you are a commoner.

It is because of this that the young prince suffered abuse from his siblings and neglect from his father, his mother died of an incurable disease leaving him at the mercy of the people that despised him, plus it didn't really help that he had white hair when nobody in the family had such hair so his status as Royalty was in question.

So with no one to turn to he had to get bullied and abused and nobody liked him, then one day his father tasked him to go to the Hendrix kingdom as a vacation of sorts he didn't elaborate but Nathaniel wanted to get away from his siblings as quickly as possible so he accepted.

If he was somewhat smart, he would have figured this was a plot to have him killed, and it worked how unfortunate, well unfortunate for the prince

" Honestly, I just don't want to, plus I want to explore the world and all that Jazz"

Though he felt sorry for the young prince who died far too early, he didn't think it would be wise to get revenge for him however he felt that the prince would be happy knowing he got away from that kingdom.

Not to mention he was just transmigrated to this new world, it would be stupid not to explore its every corner and realm.

"Hhm I guess that's reasonable"

It didn't matter to her really, if he doesn't want to go home then she won't do anything about that plus she gets a companion out of it so it's not like she's losing anything.

...….

A man licked his lips to give them some moisture because they were quite dry, in fact his whole body seemed to be quite dry, he looked deathly pale and his body looked to be nothing but skin and bones, hollow cheeks and sunken eyes, His posture was slouched and his back ached.

The man raised the ploughing tool on his hand and then dropped it down on the ground, he did the same action again and again, he continued this for several times without stopping, next to him was another man who had the same body type and similar hollow cheeks and sunken eyes, and also did the same action as well.

There were other several people in a row who all looked as if they hadn't eaten in several weeks who carried their ploughing tools and did the same action of lifting it up and down to plough the field, these people were farmers and they were currently trying the best they could to turn the soil before planting some seeds.

A man on a horse watched over them looking for any person that might fall over from exhaustion and was ready with a flask of water and a towel, the man wore knight armour made out of iron and a sword strapped to his waist.

He felt pity for these farmers, living in a village located too far away from the kingdom but too close to the dividing forest, they were trapped.

They can't get supplies from the country because of the vicious monster attacks and no merchant wants to risk it, the villagers who have lived their whole lives in here are not into the idea of leaving it, they would rather do back breaking work to try and revive it, stubborn fools who can't see that there's nothing left.

The land can no longer be farmed, and they'll gain no harvest even if they plant seeds, even said seeds aren't enough because they didn't have enough left.

Once the stubborn old ones die, the younger ones will see the futility and abandon this village, and by the looks of it, that won't take long.

"Fools, the lot of them"

The knight muttered under his breath. He was sent here by the lord in charge of this land to retrieve whoever in the village is left and lead them towards the nearest city.

His lord was generous enough to ask some fellow nobles to employ some of the villagers as gardeners or servants or whatever job was available as way to give them at least some work to live in the city but ignorant peasants chose pride over health and simply asked for better tools to farm and now he was stuck in the middle of nowhere watching idiots do back breaking work that will yield no results

"Sir Jericho!! Sir Jericho!!"

Another corpse looking man shouted his as he barely tried to run towards him, fearing the man might just die from the mere act of running. Jericho commanded his horse to gallop toward the man.

"Yes, what is it?"

"We spotted two people heading for the village"

The man said in between breaths as he was quite tired, in all honesty Jericho didn't understand why he was running, after all he had barely ate and had no energy to run plus if it's not an emergency there's no need to run.

"How far?"

"I think they should make here within the hour"

"Where are they coming from?"

"South tower, from within the forest"

Jericho raised an eyebrow, no two people could traverse the forest by themselves.

"Hyah!!"

He commended his horse and had it headed towards the south tower.

'A trick by bandits, maybe?'

As his horse carried him he thought about the situation, there's absolutely no way two normal people could traverse the forest alone that'd be suicide only the most skilled adventurers can accomplish that but that was unlikely as the only B-ranks within the kingdom of Hendrix were in the capital and C-ranks would need a whole party to even set foot in the forest.

Maybe it's an A-rank or S-rank from the Dreyer kingdom, but that country has no S-rank adventures, and any country that has one would ensure they stay there and some A-ranks are usually given a similar treatment as S-rank though to a lesser degree.

So the sudden appearance of two people made no sense. The only logical conclusion was bandits, but even bandits aren't stupid.

He quickly made it to the south tower, this village had two towers one north and the other south both of them are quite run down and aren't usable and the villagers generally stay away from them, Jericho had surmised that it used to be a city and the towers were used to Lookout for monsters, but why would a city be reduced to a village?

"Sir Jericho!"

"Hello gentlemen, what did you see?"

Jericho addressed the scouts, they weren't really scouts but instead just some villagers who were steady enough to climb up the 5 meter tall wall and were sure wouldn't die if they fell.

He equipped them with a small portable monocular to lookout for monsters or anything out of the ordinary. He had done the very same to other villagers and had them look out from different corners of the village.

"Two people, a man and a woman"

"Adventurers?"

"No they don't seem to be, they're dressed too casually they have no armor or equipment, just clothes"

Jericho felt the man might be delirious, clearly he was too hungry to properly see anything and maybe was even hallucinating.

All the food they currently have is given to the children and the adults get small portions of it, some lay some traps for rabbits and birds but none of them are hunters so they fail most of the time, They cannot hunt and they didn't have any money to hire someone to teach hunting

"Everyone else saw this?"

Best confirm it with everyone and not take the words of someone who might not be all right in the head. Everyone present nodded, confirming that what he heard is true.

Jericho decided it was best he looked at it himself. He dismounted his horse, took the monocular and climbed the wall, and looked at the supposed two people.

Jericho was quite baffled he hadn't expected the men to be telling the truth, two casually dressed people walked calmly towards the village there was no sense of urgency to them they weren't running away from someone, they simply walked and it seem they were having a casual conversation as they walked.

"Quickly ready your bows they might be bandits trying to trick us"

He instructed and the men quickly scrambled together and climbed up the wall and got ready, The men had made artificial steps to make it easier to climbed up the wall, once at the top they stood up and drew their bows and waited.

Nate and Reniris walked along as they conversed with each other, their conversation had taken a weird turn, they were talking about likes and dislikes and somewhere along the line they started talking about which animal was the quickest between the rabbit and the mouse, Nate was on the side of the mouse

"The mouse is small and compact it doesn't have a lot of muscle or fat, so it should be faster and much more agile"

Was his reasoning as to why he thought a mouse was quicker than the rabbit.

"But the rabbit lives in the wild it faces danger on the daily not to mention it has powerful legs that give it a boost in speed, having to dodge predators on the daily makes it much more agile"

Was her Reasoning as to why she thought the rabbit was quicker, neither of them had any profound knowledge about mice or rabbit so most of their conversation was just speculation because they both didn't want to be wrong plus Nate hadn't clarified which mouse he was talking about.

"okay how about this—"

Nate wasn't able to finish his sentence as the sound of an arrow piercing the ground stole his attention away from Reniris while a voice shouted and gained their attention.

"Stop right there, another step, or the arrow goes through your skull"

Nathaniel was very shocked because he had thought there was nothing but forest for another kilometres before reaching the Hendrix kingdom, in fact he was so focused on Reniris he didn't really notice much, the girl was beautiful enough to keep his attention without even talking.

"Identify yourselves and no funny business"

Commanded Jericho, he has no idea if these people are bandits or not, he can't come to any conclusions about so he'll get their names and see if he has ever heard of them before, he doesn't know everyone in the world and barely knows the population of the village he currently resides in but If one of them is famous enough he might know them.

"MY Name is Eon Steel. I hail from the Dreyer kingdom"