To The Town Of Italica

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"Talking"

'Thinking'

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'Fire, huh? Wonder what's happening."

Arison quietly thought to himself as he was sat inside the vehicle with the others.

The group were currently heading towards their next destination, which was the town of Italica. The place in which they were hoping to be able to trade in the wyvern scales that they had gathered due to the sheer number of corpses of wyverns that they had destroyed on the battlefield. It was quite the distance, though it felt shorter than it was supposed.

Probably because he decided to take a quick nap to pass time.

He, along with the others, had all noticed the presence of a large smoke pillar rising from the distance. The very same spot where their destination was, and they couldn't help but wonder what was going on. It was most likely man-made as no normal smoke would just rise up from a town for no reason, so of course, it would be some kind of fire.

No surprise there.

It really didn't take long for them to finally arrive at the town as the three cars came to a stop a few meters away from the front entrance. This was definitely a smart move as the people inside would definitely panic immediately and would probably attack instantly. Arison didn't even need to see that the people inside had already noticed their presence, he could feel a couple of people already staring at them.

"Identify yourself immediately! If you are truly not our enemy, then reveal yourselves!"

One of the knights that were standing atop one of the high towers of the town had shouted loud enough for them to hear clearly. Euryale then shook Arison's right arm gently, making the boy stir a bit as he opened his eyes. He had already woken up quite a while ago, and he had already heard the knight shouting for them to come out.

Arison looked to see Lelei and Tuka already walking out of the vehicle and onto the road and into view of the town. Arison stood up himself along with Euryale as they were going to exit themselves as well, Rory having tried to grab onto his arm as they were walking out. Though, she completely missed as he easily just lifted his arm to dodge.

"Don't hold my arm."

"Oh~, I do love a good challenge." Rory smirked as she licked her lips. Arison just ignored her sentence entirely as he calmly hopped out of the car, Euryale and Rory soon following behind him as they all began calmly walking towards the front gate. Itami having also gotten out as he was the one they decided was to talk with the people.

He was technically their 'leader' in a way.

"I-Isn't that Rory Mercury? She's with them!" A certain red-haired female from within the town whispered in a shout of disbelief as her gaze settled on the black-haired apostle. Her mouth twisted into a nervous shaking frown as her body was slightly shaking. The other two with her just as shocked as she was as they peeked through the open slot in the door.

"The reaper, huh?" A male significantly older than the previous, evident from the white hair that he had, had muttered with a big frown. "This does definitely not bode well for us... But, why in the world would the apostle of Emroy decide to join together with a band of brigands?"

"It's not too surprising, right?" The redhead commented. This caused the male, along with the other female, to send her a confused look. "The deeds of their god, to me at least, seem to be nothing more than a simple whim."

"You really shouldn't say that... especially in the presence of the oracle."

"Perhaps so... though, even the likes of gods can be damn fools."

"Did you really just say that...?!"

'Why do I feel like I was just insulted?' Arison frowned slightly as he was walking with the others towards the entrance. He could see that a small opening in the front door to the town was open, and he could see that a few pair of eyes were peeking through. Who they were, he had no clue at all. Nor did he honestly care.

"Wait, the boy..." The redhead muttered as the other two blinked before looking towards the one in question. The one that they were referring to was, of course, Arison. He had his hands in his pockets as he was the one at the front of the group. "It can't be... the hair, the different colour eyes, and the beautiful girl that seems to always be beside him... Could it be?"

"What is it, princess?" The man asked in confusion. He would say that the boy looked quite harmless, though something in his heart made him believe that the kid was more than meets the eye. He wasn't one to judge someone solely based on their appearance alone. The kid gave him a worse feeling than even Rory did, for whatever reason, he did not know.

After all, the boy looked even younger than Hamilton, the youngest of the three at seventeen years only... Though, Rory also appeared the same and was no doubt stronger than all of them. She was an apostle after all...

"Don't you remember?" The redhead gulped as she stared at the approaching group. The two knights beside her just shared a glance in confusion. "The one that was talked about at the bar... The one that they said slew the fire dragon single-handedly...!"

"O-Oh, that's right!" The other female knight realised. "B-But, that can't be true, right?"

"I-I-I don't know, but it's no doubt that must be the person they were referring to..."

"But, what do we do? They're on their way..." The female knight gulped a bit of saliva in her nervousness as the redhead had closed up the small peek hole. She just turned around to face her two companions before answering. A noticeable sweat ran down her face as well as she saw the townspeople, they all had weapons but were obviously not trained.

"If they have Rory the Reaper and a potential person capable of even taking down a fire dragon single-handedly, then we may have to consider that this city is already lost."

"I suppose so..."

"Though, we still don't know if they are truly our enemies...!" The redhead spoke with some hope in her tone as she gave another big gulp to calm her nerves, though it didn't help in the slightest. She was truly trying to think of a solution to their situation, though it was much harder than she thought. 'Just what do we do?!'

Their attention was immediately brought to the door when they heard three knocks.

"A-Alright, if these people aren't our adversaries, then we will certainly want them to join us!" The redhead whispered in a shout to her companions before staring at the door silently. She then quickly took hold of the plank that was blocking the door, causing the two knights to send her worried looks as she did so. She then began pushing open the doors with full force.

"Princess...!"

"Y-Your majesty!"

"Welcome to Italica, my frien- gah!"

The entire group sweatdropped heavily as after they saw the door flying open, it smashed into Arison as he was the one standing in front of the door. Though, there wasn't enough force for it to break, and Arison was too strong as it didn't affect him at all and was bounced back, resulting in it smacking the person who opened the door.

Arison then deadpanned as he was not taking the blame for this... You don't just open a door with that much force, just open it up like a normal human being.

"O-Ow~..." The person slowly opened up the door this time as she rubbed her face, which her nose was now a bit red... as well as the rest of her face. She then looked at the group that were staring at her awkwardly, causing her to laugh nervously. "W-Welcome you all to Italica! Please ignore everything that just happened there..."

"Yeah... no way."

With that, the group walked into the town. When they did, they noticed that a number of the villagers were holding different tools, along with some with proper weapons like swords getting into stance just in case. Though, Arison could see they were obviously not trained in any way. Their form was horrid, no armour at all, and their weapons horrible in quality... not surprising for this world.

Not even a single bullet would be blocked by the armour these knights had either.

"If I may ask." Itami was the one that stepped forward as the group were looking around at the place. To Arison, it was your typical view of a medieval town you would see in fantasy games as well as in history books. "Who is the one that is in charge around here out of you fine folk?"

It was silent for a good bit before all of the townspeople's eyes, as well as the knights, had all turned their attention towards the redhead. It was pretty obvious now who was the supposed one in charge now. Said person flinching at the sudden looks as she was nervous suddenly under the spotlight that was just placed on her.

"W-Wait, uh..."

"Everyone, you are in the presence of her majesty! The third princess, Pina Co Lada!" The brown-haired knight, who was the young female that was watching with the redhead and the older male not too long ago, had stepped in front of the redhead before shouting towards them all. "All of you should show some respect!"

"Huh?" Itami muttered dumbly.

"The princess?" Lelei added in confusion.

On the other hand, both Euryale and Arison deadpanned as they heard the name. With Arison soon commenting.

"Pina Co Lada? Isn't that cocktail? I swear if she does alcohol too, if her name is anything to go by, then I'm seriously out of here..."

"Agreed..."

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