Infinite Arrow-Chapter 41 - 39: Escort (2)

It has been a day after choosing the right path of the fork road they came across. It leads to the City of Ordelia, a city that is heavily guarded by soldiers thanks to the connection it has with the royal family.

Which is why that’s the reason why Arnheid, the twelfth sword of the kingdom and Reinar, the eleventh shield of the kingdom decided it would be best to go to the City of Ordelia.

It is the safest place for the princess to be when most of the royal family are being assassinated, though she is probably the first target so far. They wouldn’t let this chance go by, especially when the princess is but a defenseless child. It is the perfect opportunity for them to enact their purpose as an illegal organization.

Though it has been a day, it felt like everyone has gotten closer by having small conversations with each other. Reinar, the dude who wielded the shield and the hammer is recovering pretty quickly and is getting along pretty well with the warrior of the ground, Enrid.

Lmao, never thought I’d see a former criminal and a knight get along so well.

Cliff smiled as he saw Arnheid and his mentor, Esther talking to each other while looking at the map. These two are the most logical people inside the carriage, they do most of the planning.

If only I could inspect their character interfaces... Y’know, why do I don’t have that ability? I’m the transmigrated one here, shouldn’t that be one of my skills?

Despite trying so many times before, he couldn’t check their character profiles like what he does to himself. It seems that even in an anime-like setting, he doesn’t get the same powers as other main characters. He feels like he’s been robbed of many great things thanks to the system making him go through the realism difficulty.

Yawned...

After checking the outside through the cloth that covered the carriage, he sat down and stretched his body. He’s been physically training ever since morning and this was the only time he could take a break from the harsh running. He closed his eyes and activated his magic circuits, letting his mana circulate through his body. His body faintly glowed, it seemed more controlled than before where he was just glowing too brightly, using too much mana.

...despite training so many times, it’s still difficult to naturally flow my mana on some parts of my mana circuits...

After testing it many times, he concluded that those parts of his mana circuits were the ones affected by his curse. Because no matter how many times he tries to cleanse his circuits, it doesn’t disappear. Recently, he discovered a major disadvantage.

His mana heart cannot pump mana once it hits the five-minute mark on the time. It’s as if everything is going against him. The system, the world, fate, and even his own body.

The lad deeply sighed, expressing his stress openly as he rubbed his palm on his face to remove stress and tension. He opened his eyelids and found a certain girl beside him, looking at him.

"U-uhm... w-was that m-magic?" The little girl hidden in her cloak silently asked, he didn’t know if she knew but her tone of voice sounded happy and curious.

Did the princess just strike a conversation with me?

"W-weeeeell... If you consider harnessing my mana inside my body magic– then... probably?" He shrugs his shoulders, unsure if it’s magic or if it’s just flowing mana inside his circuits. It’s like letting his blood flow inside his veins, it’s not a thing that you manually do.

"My dadd– Father a-always used to tell me that magic is a magnificent thing to have! E-especially when you can do stuff like... create a field of flowers out of nothing but mana!" As she continued to talk, her stuttering slowly faded and her confidence to converse began to rise.

"Creating a field of flowers does sound nice, especially if you’re a farmer or an external designer!" Cliff kept up with the young lass’ energy to talk. Honestly, it was pretty unexpected for the others to hear the two of them converse without being so awkward with each other.

"What’s a... external designer?" The young lass tilted her head sideways, wondering what that word meant.

Shit– uh...!

"Oh! I meant a gardener, you know! The one that keeps the garden maintained?" Fortunately, he’s pretty quick with his answer. Although quite impulsive sometimes, just like how he messed up earlier by using a word that isn’t that familiar to everyone.

For a few seconds, everything was pretty quiet because of how peaceful everything was, but was broken by her highness’ curiosity "Mister, are you an adventurer?"

"Yes, why?" Cliff answered within a heartbeat. A proclamation of proudly calling himself an adventurer.

"Father told me that adventurers are the problem-solvers of the kingdom! I’ve always wanted to become an adventurer!" She lifted her arms and flexed her white slender muscles, trying to mimic a supposedly bodybuilder pose but ended up looking adorable instead.

Cliff giggles softly, putting his hands on his mouth to hold back his laughter "Aren’t you a little too young?"

"I’m not that young! I’m fourteen!" She pouted as she crossed her arms together and looked in the opposite direction of Cliff, like an upset child who didn’t want to talk to their parents.

Fourteen and she’s being assassinated... I may have lied when I said that I wanted to do this quest, but protecting this little kid now is my main mission. If the system expects me to escort her safely, then so be it.

Out of nowhere, Cliff puts his palm on her head and starts patting her. It was so sudden that even the princess didn’t know what to do, but one thing for sure is that she didn’t mind and Arnheid didn’t either.

"You’ll be safe with us, alright? We’ll make sure we get you back home." Cliff promised. He’ll do his best to not let any mistakes happen again, he’s improved now, and it won’t happen again.

<•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••>

After that day, all six of them managed to arrive at a small town. It was particularly odd because no people were walking around the town.

"Even for a small town, this is weirdly empty. Should we go ask around?" Enrid can be seen sitting on a small wooden bench. Somehow, he’s relaxed about the situation, which is off-putting for the three newcomers.

"Let me handle the searching." When there’s an opportunity, take it. That’s the red-haired archer’s motto, especially when he discovered that one of his passive abilities can be used right now.

He bent his knees and crouched on the ground, he placed his palm onto the dirt and closed his eyes.

"𝗦𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵."

A droplet of water fell into the vast lake of water, and it caused the lake to ripple. The ripple affects every single object within its radius and everything is shown.

Cliff is the droplet of water and his search ability is the ripple that tracks everything down. Like a GPS, he can only do it one time before waiting for the cooldown to end. His ears twitched, his skin felt every gust of wind hit his body, and his nose smelled the scent of iron rusting...

He opened his eyes, stood up and looked at the others with a serious and pained expression.

"Blood."

What a bad day for an ability debut.