Leaving the Tower

"Excuse me," Sophia mumbled, "But there seems to be another box that has popped up in front of me. I do not understand what it is saying."

I remembered that I had to invite the princess to the Party and when I checked the Party Window, I noticed that not only had Sophia been added to Kat's and my Party automatically, but Saizo had been removed.

"Kat," I said slowly as I looked around, "Where's Saizo?"

When I mentioned his name, I looked at Kat and saw that her face had paled considerably. She opened her mouth to answer, but a Window appeared before us.

"What does this box mean?" Sophia whined behind me. The Window had been sent from her. I regretted teaching her how to share her Windows with all of us for a second.

[USER HAS RECEIVED A NEW QUEST!

QUEST: STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND

YOU HAVE FOUND YOURSELF IN A STRANGE NEW LAND, WITH NO IMMEDIATE WAY TO GET BACK HOME. HIDE, SURVIVE, AND MAKE YOUR WAY BACK HOME WITHOUT CAUSING AN INTERNATIONAL INCIDENT.

(NOTE: THIS QUEST HAS A FAILURE CONDITION.)

REWARD(S):

- LEGENDARY ACHIEVEMENT!

- FULL ACCESS TO PREVIOUSLY UNLOCKED ABILITIES!

IN THE EVENT OF QUEST FAILURE:

- INTERNATIONAL INCIDENT!

- DEATH!]

The frankness of the Quest was eerie and surprising. The vague clear conditions and seemingly underwhelming rewards for the clearance of the Quest also confused me. Paradigm had never been outright unfavourable to its Users. Even my old Daily Quests had seemed fair if I didn't have problems with my left arm. The objectives of the Quests were always something that anybody with any hunting skills could easily do.

This new Quest was the opposite of fair.

"Why did you accept the Quest?" I asked Sophia, "The rewards are terrible, and did you even read what happens if you fail it?"

"I had no choice!" Sophia wailed, she had tears that started to form in her eyes, "All I received was that one box with the information!"

I was about to say that it was impossible, but then I remembered what happened when I received the Solo Dungeon Quest. If I remember correctly, I also didn't have a choice to accept or decline the Quest. It simply asked me if I wanted to 'Open' the Quest.

What was strange was Sophia's Quest had no glitched text in it. It looked like it was a normal Quest that was triggered by something.

Sophia received the Quest Window only after she left the Crimson Tower. Had Paradigm prepared such a strange Quest in preparation for Sophia's exit?

"Ryuu!" Kat called while she tugged at my jacket. I turned around and saw her pointing in the direction of the once-Churchgoer camp. I could see a small group of people had left the camp and started to make their way over to us.

I mumbled a curse under my breath and swiped the Window away as I turned back towards Sophia.

"All right, Sophia!" I said intensely.

"Princess Sophia to—" she frowned, but suddenly stopped when I grabbed her shoulders again tightly.

"No. Listen to me," I ordered her. I didn't know where the authority came from, but I was glad that she snapped her mouth shut and listened.

"Remember what I asked you before?" I said quickly, "What would Aldgennian royalty do if they found a foreign royal mysteriously within their territory? Combine that with the Window you received."

She opened her mouth to argue, but I shook my head, "No matter what you think, whatever that Window said is the truth, and it said that you needed to hide. First and foremost."

She looked shocked at first, but then slowly nodded.

"That means that you must act or look like a princess, do you understand?" I continued, "That means we need to treat you like you're a normal person and not royalty. Right, Sophia?"

I emphasised my point when I said her name, and even though she reacted as if I had gravely dishonoured her family, she understood the strange and tense situation that she found herself in and nodded.

I let her shoulders go and turned to Kat, "We need a cover story for her just in case they ask where she came from."

Kat looked at me with panicked eyes as if to say that she had no ideas, but then something changed in her eyes, and I knew that she thought of something.

"We could say that she was a foreign slave that the Churchgoers had that escaped to the Tower with us."

"A slave?" Sophia whined loudly.

"Do you have any better ideas?" I hissed as I felt like she had been too loud.

She covered her mouth with her hand and shook her head quickly. I made the motion for her to keep quiet and she nodded.

"I don't think we can do any better than that," I admitted to Kat who nodded as well.

I turned to check how far away the group of people from the camp were and when I saw that they were still a little bit away, I turned back to Sophia.

"One last thing, try to talk as little as possible, at least when we're not alone," I told her.

She looked at me with shocked and angry eyes and hissed, "Why?"

"You talk kinda weird," Kat said softly, which surprised me and Sophia.

"H-how so?" Sophia asked, a little bit softer this time.

"It doesn't sound natural. You sound a little bit stiff like you're not used to talking," I added, and looked for confirmation from Kat, who nodded energetically.

"I do not!" Sophia defended as quietly as she could, "It is you two who talk awkwardly like low peasants!"

I clenched my jaw at her label of me and glanced down to the ground, keeping my gaze away from Kat and her.

"I know we might sound lower-class than you," Kat spoke up. Her voice quivered with emotion as she struggled to keep it calm, "And yeah, you're a princess from Aldgenn, but I think until you complete your Quest, that identity is dangerous for you to just flash everywhere.

"Even if you believe that we're the ones that are talking weird, but until you can sound like us when you talk, I think it's best if you let us speak for you. At least in public."

Kat had surprisingly managed to say what I wanted to say, seemingly with a wisdom you would never expect from someone so young. I glanced at Sophia. She watched Kat with a quiet intensity and surprisingly sighed and nodded.

"No, you are correct. I need to keep in mind that I am the stranger in a strange land that the box said." Sophia collected herself and covered herself with the fur coat I had snatched from the wardrobe in her room before we teleported.

She noticed what she was wearing and asked, "How do we explain the coat?"

Surprisingly, I answered quickly, "We could say that we found it somewhere in the Tower."

I turned to Kat and raised my eyebrows at her, silently asking if that could work. She thought for a little bit and nodded.

"Okay, now that we've got a story to tell in case anybody asks," I said, "Should we go see why the Churchgoer camp is suddenly a One Creator camp again?"

***

We slowed to a stop around midway between the Crimson Tower and the One Creator camp. The group that exited the camp were three knights, one knight was leading the other two. The knight in the front raised his hand and waved. Because I was standing in front of Kat and Sophia, I raised my hand in a return gesture.

The knights were all dressed in a plain set of metal armour, though I can see leather underneath where the metal segments didn't cover the body completely to allow the knights to bend their arms and legs. The knights didn't look like the heat affected them, even though it should have.

"Who are you?" the knight in front asked. The tone in his voice was friendly but serious.

"My name is Ryuu, I'm an adventurer who had a Quest at the Crimson Tower," I said calmly.

"You from around here?" the knight asked.

"Uh, no, I come from Ohda, which is about a four-day walking journey on the other side of Shinobu City," I explained.

"And them?" the knight pointed at the two girls behind me, "they don't look like no adventurers."

I nodded as Kat stepped forward to stand slightly behind me. She grabbed onto my jacket tightly as if it was something to comfort her. I turned slightly to look at her and was amazed by how weak and scared she looked for the knights.

"Are you part of the Religion of the One Creator?" Kat asked innocently.

The knight in front nodded before lowering himself to one knee to be close to her eye level, "I am, and you are?"

"I'm Katsumi," Kat said in a soft, meek voice, "I'm scared that the bad people will get me."

"My Party found her whilst we made our way towards the Tower," I spoke out. The knights focussed on me as I spoke, "She managed to escape, and we promised to protect her from the Churchgoers."

"What happened to the rest of your Party?" the knight said.

I looked down and avoided his eye contact, "They all died in the struggle with the Churchgoers that had overrun the One Creator camp," I said quietly.

In the corner of my eye, I could see the knight in front straighten and shoot a look at the other two knights.

"It is such a tragedy that that happened," the knight in front said before focussing on Sophia, "and what's her story?"

"She's the nice lady that helped me escape," Kat said without missing a beat, "The bad people brought her with them, and she made a distraction that let me run away."

I was shocked at how quickly Kat had managed to make up a backstory for Sophia. I quickly glanced at her, and she looked so believable as a young, traumatised kid. I quickly made a mental note that I shouldn't underestimate her.

"Sir," one of the other knights stepped forward and spoke to his superior, "The girl doesn't look like she's a Pjanian citizen."

The knight in front glanced at Sophia who had covered most of her face and body with the fur coat, but her lighter skin and piercing blue eyes were still visible.

"No," the knight in front said as he shook his head slowly, "These monstrous Churchgoer scum. They are even involved in slave trading to make their cult money."

"I'm sorry to interrupt," I spoke out respectfully, "But I'm extremely exhausted from clearing the Quest and looking after Katsumi and the slave…"

Sophia growled quietly behind me, and I was thankful that the knights didn't hear her.

"…Katsumi has gone through so much, I'm sure she would like a place to rest as well. Are we able to stop by your camp instead of being stuck here in this heat?"

The knight nodded understandingly and ordered the two behind him to go ahead back to the camp; one to prepare a private tent for 'the guests', and the other to report back to someone or something called the Head-Perator.

Kat's ears pricked up when she heard the title, "The Head-Perator is here?"

As the two subordinates turned and started to make their way briskly back towards the camp, the knight in charge turned back to Kat and nodded.

"That's why we're here," the knight said. He gestured for us to follow him, "I'll tell you along the way."

The knight introduced himself as Peter as we made our way towards the camp. He explained that he was a Holy Knight from Sua, a neighbouring nation to Aldgenn, though his mother was Pjanian. He explained that he was part of a Holy Regiment and that he and other knights like him oversaw protecting the Head-Perator as he went on his missionary campus tour. It seemed that they were on their way towards Kat's campus a half-dead survivor was found on the road about three days out that reported an attack from the Churchgoer camp nearby.

The knight turned and reassured Kat that she wasn't alone in surviving the Churchgoer attack.

As far as I understood it, it seemed that the Head-Perator was basically the one in charge of the whole Religion of the One Creator. They hold great power in the religion, but they are also the one that has excellent knowledge of the Scriptures. The closest comparison that I could think of was the Head-Perator was like the mayor of a town if the town held everybody who was part of the religion.

According to Peter, the current Head-Perator was the first leader in three centuries who wanted to leave the Holy City of Sanctum in Aldgenn to visit the missionary campuses around the world to witness the 'good work' being done by believers of the One Creator.

By the time we reached the gates of the old One Creator campus, Peter then led the three of us to our private tent. The knight that was told to prepare the private tent was by the entrance flap and he let us in. It was a big structure and when we stepped inside, we saw that there was a group-seats set up against one fabric wall of the tent, and next to the group-seats was a simple sleeping bag, facing the entrance flap of the tent.

"We thought that since you were the only male in the group it would be easier to have your sleeping gear set up out here, separate from the women," the knight explained, "There're two sleeping sets put out through the partition. That way the women get a little bit of extra privacy."

I nodded and thanked the knight.

Peter approved the knight's performance of his task and turned to Sophia and me, "I'm sure you both would want to clean yourselves after your ordeals, so I'll get someone to bring you some bathing water," he turned to Sophia, "And I'll make sure the girl gets a change of clothes."

He turned back to me, "I assume you have some extra gear you could change into if you wanted?"

I nodded.

Peter nodded and left the tent. We were finally alone with a little bit of privacy.

I sighed and slumped down on a hard cushion of the group-seats. Sophia loosened the coat around her face and breathed out in relief.

"That was nerve-wracking," she said quietly.

"You were so good Kat," I commended the girl, "I didn't know you could act like that!"

Kat looked like she had held her breath and just let it go with a huge sigh. She shook her head, "No, I was so scared that they weren't going to believe me."

"Oh my!" Sophia exclaimed in a hushed voice as she awkwardly fell onto the compacted sand ground in the tent.

"What happened?" I asked.

"I lost the strength in my legs," Sophia said quietly, "So much has happened so quickly, I think I am overwhelmed with everything that has happened."

"What do we do now?" Kat asked.

"I think the knight — Peter said something about bathing water? So, I think first we should bathe and change out of our dirty clothes," I said after thinking for a bit, "I'm also looking forward to some sleep. we've been awake for so long, I'm glad we get stamina refilled every time we level up otherwise I would have crashed from exhaustion ages ago."

"Hello?" a voice called out from outside.

I quickly shot a look at Sophia who had already covered her face and turned around away from the entrance flap slightly.

"Come in!" I called back. I tried to keep my voice calm and even.

A knight, the other one that had made their way to the Tower with Peter entered the tent and cleared his throat.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, but the Head-Perator wishes to speak with the young Miss Katsumi." The knight explained.

"Me?" Kat mumbled in shock. "Why?"

"The Head-Perator wishes to hear what happened here from your perspective," the knight said.

"I—" Kat stammered. She looked at me with fear in her eyes.

I stood and knelt in front of her. She kept a close eye on my left arm, and I made sure that I used my right hand instead, placing it on her shoulder softly and giving her a kind and tired smile.

"Don't worry," I assured her, "Just tell them what happened. We'll still be here when you come back."

I turned to the knight and asked him, "She'll come right back, right?"

The knight nodded quickly, "Of course, the Head-Perator just requires her witness account of what happened to the campus when it was attacked by the Churchgoers."

"See?" I turned back to Kat, "It'll all be all right."

Kat nodded, but I could see that she was still feeling a little scared.

"I promised to keep you safe, right?" I asked her. She nodded and I continued, "I won't leave you by yourself until I know you're safe, okay?"

She took me by surprise and hugged me then. It was a tight, desperate, scared hug. I hugged her back with my right hand. She pulled away quickly and stepped past the silent knight and exited the tent.

"Wait!" the knight called out. He quickly turned back to me and said before he left the tent, "Thank you for looking after her all this time."

When it was quiet again, Sophia unwrapped the coat around her face and turned to me.

"What now?" she asked quietly.

I walked past her and laid on top of the sleeping bag that Peter said was mine and sighed, "Now we rest for a bit."