It didn't take long for Arana to go back to her usual self, but she did secure her hat to her head with a few extra pins, and she does seem to be a bit more vigilant now.

Well, I do need to talk to her about this girl, so I'm glad that she didn't stay mad at me. We both move away from her and I start talking in a low voice.

"So Ara... do you have any idea of which country this girl comes from? And do you think that she's truly a princess?"

"If I had to guess... judging by the blue hair and eyes as well as her style of clothing, I'd say that she probably comes from the Agua kingdom, as for her being a princess, I have no idea, but she does look the part"

"The Agua kingdom? Isn't that the kingdom located on the east coast of the continent? The one made mostly of a set of islands?"

"You don't know the name of your own kingdom but you know about one on the other side of the continent?"

"Well, the Agua kingdom is just much more interesting, don't you think? They're at the top of the world when it comes to research on water magic, and they even managed to build a system of bridges to connect all their islands by placing magic circuits on the sea itself, I don't even know how they managed that! And those bridges only materialize while someone is crossing them, I wish I could see them someday"

"So you are just interested in stuff related to magic research, as always"

"Well, I also read that there are a lot of underwater ruins, many of them have not been explored yet so there are a lot of adventure novels that use that area as a setting"

There was a story in which the protagonists encounter a monster inside one of those ruins that was level 500, I remember laughing at how absurd it was for something to have such a high level... and then I found out that my own level was even higher than that.

"Let's get back on topic, what were you planning to do with the kidnapped princess?"

"I did not kidnap her! I was thinking of letting her go after we reach the nearest town, whoever is in charge there should take care of sending her back home"

"Are you sure? We don't know if she even has a way to prove her identity, there's no guarantee that she'll be able to get any help, and since it seems like someone is trying to kill her, leaving her alone could be dangerous"

"Well, it's not like I have a choice... she clearly doesn't want to travel with me, if I don't let her go at the first chance I get I would really become a kidnapper"

If she said that she wanted to stay with us, I would let her, but the chances of that seem very low...

"According to the map, there's a town called 'Lixard' less than two hours away from here"

"There's one more thing I need to do there, I'm still carrying the bodies of the two guards who were killed earlier, I should leave them on a church so they can bury them"

It's a bit disturbing to think that I'm carrying two corpses around, so I want to drop them as soon as possible.

"Actually, you should give them to the town guards, they'll want to inspect the bodies before they get buried, by the way, do you know what their names were? They're going to need them to give a proper burial"

"No, I don't, maybe we should ask the princess"

When we go back to her, she's looking at us with a weird face.

"Eh... do you want to ask me anything?"

"You... were you listening to our conversation just now?"

Eh? I don't know how Arana got that idea but the girl is making a surprised face as if she just got caught.

"Listening? Why would you think that? You were too far away to listen to"

"Normally, if the people who kidnapped you... "

"But we did not kidnap her"

"... walk away to talk without letting you hear, you would be concerned and a bit afraid, especially if one of those people is Luna, but instead of looking worried, you had a confused expression on your face, as if you had been listening to our conversation and didn't expect the things we were saying"

I'm not sure if that alone is enough to conclude that she was listening...

"And isn't it strange how you knew that we wanted to ask you something?"

Oh, there's also that.

"I don't know what you are talking about, I could not have heard you from here when you were talking so low"

"That's true, so how did you do it? Was it a spell or a skill? There's no way you could have used magic without Luna noticing, so it must be a skill, am I wrong?"

"Let me warn you that trying to keep a secret from Arana is impossible, I know from experience"

"Alright, you win! I have a skill that lets me listen to things I should not be able to hear, happy now?"

Well, it's not like knowing that will do us any good...

"Since you know what we were talking about, will you tell us the names of your guards?"

"Is this some kind of trick? Will you be able to turn them into your undead servants or something if I tell you their names?"

"No, I don't think that type of magic even exists..."

Seriously, there is a limit to how much you can mistrust someone, and inventing new forms of magic that they may be trying to use is clearly past that limit.

"Please... I'm sure that they were your friends, do you want them to be buried in a nameless grave? I promise that I'm not trying to do anything weird"

Oh, she's actually thinking about it.

"Their names were Roy and Mauro"

"Ah! thank you for trusting..."

"She's lying"

Heh? What does she mean by that?

"Fine! Ron and Marnon!"

"Now she's telling the truth"

"Uh, Ara, how do you know that?"

"I have good intuition"

She says while shrugging her shoulders, as I said, it's impossible to keep a secret from her...

We arrive at the town of Lixard shortly after, however, I could swear I just saw a...

"Ara, could you describe to me what you just saw?"

"You just got so surprised that you tripped on a rock and fell on your butt"

"I mean what you just saw over there!"

"A red dragon just flew away from the town"

Ah, good, I wasn't just seeing things. This is my first time seeing a dragon, it really looks as imposing as they say, but the wings were way bigger than I thought, I wonder what it was doing here.

"Is it common for dragons to visit human settlements?"

"No, it's not... or rather, if they do, they'll go in human form and not reveal themselves"

Then what was that one doing over there? Ah well, it's not like that has anything to do with me.

"I guess it's time for me to enter a town once again"

To be honest, I'm a bit scared to go there after my last experience visiting a town...

"Don't worry, when we were at the ork village I got something for you"

Arana gives me a mask to hide my face, but this mask... it's completely white except for the holes for the eyes.

"Isn't this going to make me look even more sinister and suspicious?"

"Yeah, but it's still better than letting people see your actual face"

"I agree, you look much less scary with that on"

Why do you have to sound so certain of that!? And why do you have to agree!? Is my face really that bad? I always thought that I was at least a bit pretty...

"Don't get the wrong idea, Luna, you really are beautiful, but that only adds to the intimidation factor"

"If you say so..."

"Well then, leave this girl to me"

"Just make sure to leave her somewhere safe"

Arana said that she would take care of not only leaving her somewhere safe but also of finding someone who can help her. I don't know what she's planning to do but she seems rather confident.

I have the bodies inside my storage, so I'll have to take care of them myself, since I don't think that letting anyone see me with two corpses is a good idea, I'm just going to leave them when nobody is looking with a note explaining what happened, also, I'm leaving them at the church, after all, I don't want to get close to any guards while looking this suspicious, if they want to investigate anything that's their problem.

I split up with Arana and enter the town, let's hope that things go better than last time. I only intend to go in, leave the bodies and go out, so I don't think there's a chance for me to run into any trouble.

forli

Until now I had been able to guess the approximate number of words that I was going to write, but his time I only wrote what was going to be the shortest half of the chapter and it ended up being as long as one of my usual chapters, so not a lot happens on this one, I don't know how I managed to get it wrong by that much.

I wonder if the second half will end up being a full chapter as well.