A figure was seen riding a horse entering the Lioness Palace.
A few days ago, the castle courtyard was packed to the brim, both participants and spectators alike. Now, instead, the place was filled with dozens of knights all poised and ready for a task.
They were all busy preparing for a journey to the Logress Kingdom capital, the city of Camelot.
Emery looked around and saw a corner where the group of squires selected for the tournament had gathered.
Among them, he could spot Lucas and Mark talking with each other. They were the two senior squires who managed to successfully pass the assessment.
Emery decided to use his spare time to get acquainted with the other selected squires. From their conversations, Emery discovered that among the 25 who were selected, most came from lower-ranked noble families.
But all the squires gathered there, be it the lower-ranked ones or high-ranked ones. They were all selected because of their strength. Thanks to this, they each had mutual respect for each other's skills, and the two groups could get along better than expected, in spite of their different social status. To some extend at least.
Emery was pleased as more friends were always better. The only problem he had was Abe, who kept on giving him such cold glares he could feel them piercing his back.
"At this point, all the staring is beyond creepy…" Emery muttered to himself.
The noise suddenly quieted down and all eyes darted towards the direction of the massive double doors leading to the palace. With a command from one of the knights, the door was opened, revealing the king walking right in front of the princess.
The king gave a warm welcome and a little congratulations in light of what the squires achieved on the assessments, before announcing that the princess would represent the kingdom at the event due to his poor health.
Right as the words left the king's lips, all eyes landed on the fair princess. She wore a predominantly white gown, trimmed with golden edges and decorated with few pieces of jewelry. The princess greeted the squires and the knights with a smile before going inside the horse-drawn carriage accompanied by one of her aides.
The carriage doors were closed and Yvain, the Knight of the Lion, gave everyone the orders to move right away.
The group of 30 knights in silver armor, followed by the 25 squires, all retrieved their horses from the stables. The knights formed a protective formation around the princess, while the 25 squires followed close behind. Without breaking their formation, they headed out of the Lioness Palace.
According to the other squires, the journey would take either three or four days depending on the weather. For Emery, personally, he viewed the journey as a waste of time. Being around these people, with eyes staring all the time, Emery would not be able to return to the Khaos Space the whole journey. He also had to spend his nights taking turns with the other squires for night watch alongside the knights.
Fortunately, Emery did not forget to prepare a blue stone formation deep in the woods right near Lionarch City. If the situation called for it, he would be able to return instantly next time.
The journey was overall quite boring. All the other squires were busy talking about the matters going on within the kingdom and Emery wanted no part of it. He knew that everything going on in the Magus Academy would overtake his life and for the present, he preferred to focus on his chances to find Morgana and how he could try finding information about the sword of destiny.
Night quickly came and the group stopped to set up camp and rest for the day. While the squires were busy building the place, Emery could see that some of them kept trying to find a way to interact with the princess or at least get her attention for a few moments. Mark and Lucas were also part of those squires.
Meanwhile, Abe was the boldest of them all, but it was clear his every attempt only annoyed the princess. At one point, the Golden Knight Yvain had to get involved.
Emery was really not interested in interacting with the princess at all. The next day came, and, as usual, they continued their journey before setting up tents.
This time, on the second night, unexpectedly he was called upon to meet the princess. This surely raises a few jealous glares from the other squire
The tent she resided in was surrounded by knights and Emery walked close towards the torches burning close to it. Underneath the torches and right outside the tent, the princess stood waiting for him.
Emery was startled to see the glint of a shiny blade underneath the light. The princess was wearing her combat gear. She looked at him and said,
"Draw your sword."
He didn't have a chance to process her words, as she quickly dashed forward and charged at him while preparing to strike. He didn't expect the attack to be that fast, nor did he expect it to take her challenge a little seriously.
But of course, Emery could easily dodge it by a simple sidestepping.
The princess did not stop her attack there. Her skillful footwork really came into play and she quickly spun around, using the momentum of the movement to enhance the strength to her side swing. Were she facing anyone else, the attack would surely catch them off-guard, but as of now, her strength wasn't even close enough to try touching him.
With the power of his spirit reading, Emery was able to sense that the Golden Knight was waiting nearby in the shadow, observing their fight.
It seemed this was one of those times where a bored princess forced herself to train her sword skills with her subordinate.
He was unwilling to drag on this farce of a fight a moment longer. He pulled the sword sheathed on his belt and simply hit the princess' sword near its base, making her lose the grip on her blade and let it clatter on the ground uselessly. Right as she reached for it, Emery pointed the tip towards her neck.
Everything happened so quickly, to the point that the Golden Knight unconsciously charged forward to protect the princess.
Seeing the princess's astound expression, Emery quickly sheathed his sword and turned to leave. "Good night, Princess."
Before he even took his first steps out of there, the princess shouted, stopping him in his tracks. "Stop right there!"