After showing my father the king the storage room full of food and explained about Alice he looked at me as if I was an idiot for not already going and wasting time asking him!

 

“Every minute you waste talking to me here about useless things our people are starving, Luna! Is that head on your shoulders empty? Leave for Eden immediately take all the wagons you can, and take the royal knights for protection”

 

Well, I got his message loud and clear. Although I find that Eden needs so many mana stones a bit suspicious, Father is right we do indeed need the food no matter what.

 

Afterward, we went to the adventures guild in the city to put up a notice that anyone with a wagon should meet at the front gate in a few hours.

 

The Cloudhell family is loved by the people because we don’t put ourselves above the commoners, over the last month we sold a lot of luxury goods we had stored to help poorer commoners to afford food.

 

That's why our cellar was empty and also why we didn’t have a proper throne anymore. We also sold things like our wooden wagons since we had no use for them at the time. This is why I have to go to the adventures guild to make a request like this.

 

While I was writing the request it seems Alice took an interest in the guild and went to register. I was a little curious what rank she would be awarded. Maybe A rank considering she got to the 90th floor of a dungeon? 

 

Oh, she just received her card and all the people around her are making surprised faces. She walks over to me and shows me a card made of solid platinum with an S in the middle and her name engraved on the back.

 

My jaw almost dislocates in pure shock, I probably look like a fish with my mouth open like this but I don’t care. The royal knights escorting me and all the adventures that laid eyes on the card had a similar reaction.

 

“W-what Sss ran-k???” I finally manage to say while stuttering

 

The black-haired girl simply giggles and makes a V for victory sign with her hand.

 

Well, haven’t I made an amazing friend? Go me!

 

Anyways after that, almost everyone in the guild accepted my request after seeing I was the one who put the request up and that this S rank girl would be joining me.

 

They will probably try to recruit her or even just to see some of her battle techniques. To say it simply there are only 2 other known S ranks out there. To be rated an S rank the person must be over level 300! Therefore they would be bowed to even by kings, they are the world's top celebrities! Alice is super cute as well compared to the other S ranks who are men covered in scars and are old by now. 

 

My guild request:

 

Luna Cloudhell, first princess of the Frostlands requests the following:

 

I require wagons, we will be traveling into the center of the cursed forest to trade mana stones for food with a new country called Eden.

 

People can bring their own mana stones to trade for food or they can just bring an empty wagon and will be paid for their service of transporting food back from Eden to the Frostlands.

 

The danger level of request: High

 

Participant requirement: Anyone with a wagon and horse

2 hours later we have a force of 50 people with wagons and horses. The royal knights walk around the convoy to protect it from monster threats but everyone is quite relaxed knowing an S rank is traveling with them.

 

I am currently sitting in a royal carriage with the Cloudhell emblem on it. This is one of the few things we never sold since it was custom built for our family and has a lot of history.

 

Sitting opposite me is my new mysterious friend, Alice. She is looking out the window with interest while twirling around one of her fans on her finger.

 

With Father's permission I used the last bit of our funds to purchase mana stones and gave them to Alice to store in her storage ring, she offered to store the other people's mana stones too but they didn’t trust her fully yet.

 

The ground is very uneven and trees are in the way so the convoy is moving quite slowly to go around trees and not break any of the carriage or wagon's wheels. At this speed, the journey will take at least 2 days. Guess I'll have to sleep in this carriage and share with Alice.

 

After an hour of traveling me and Alice were having some light-hearted conversation about each other's lives when there was a knock on the carriage door.

 

I get up and open the slider on the door and meet face to face with the royal knight captain.

 

“Sorry to disturb you princess and miss Alice but there is a strange situation in front of us and wish to ask for your opinion.”

 

“Very well stop the carriage and we shall take a look”

 

After coming to a halt we step out of the carriage, Alice doesn’t seem shocked but I certainly am!

 

In front of me is a road made of stone, that would be strange enough, nobody has managed to maintain or build such a road in the middle of a monster-infested forest. A road in such a place would usually be a simple dirt road. Stone roads are only seen in capital cities!

 

But now the strangest part is the undead goblins constructing the road. Yes not only are goblins constructing something like a stone road, but they are also all skeletons…

 

“Oh these are Xia’s minions, we were pretty sure you would accept my offer so to make travel easier we decided to build a road from us to you,” the black-haired beauty says after a moment of silence.

 

“I ran along this road to get here, it's quite smooth,” she says while nodding to herself as if what just came out of her mouth is normal.

 

“You ran here?!?” the journey would take 2 days by carriage there's no way she could run all the way here.

 

“Yea how else was I supposed to get here, I don't have a carriage, after all, don’t worry I can run fast!” so she says with a smug look on her face.

 

“There seems to be no problem, captain proceed down the road, tell everyone to leave the undead alone,” I say to the knight captain kneeling next to me while letting out a heavy sigh.

 

“It shall be done princess, EVERYONE MOVE OUT, DON'T ATTACK THE UNDEAD!”

 

Ok my eardrums hurt but thanks I guess, I follow Alice and return to the carriage and enjoy the rest of the journey to Eden on the new smooth road.

 

If Xia can control this many undead so precisely he must be quite powerful, more powerful than Alice? Nah no way if a country had two S ranks then the balance of power between the nations would be at risk.

 

Surely not...