Chapter 157: Trip ; Arrival ; Trouble

"Wait, are you for real? We're going to be going there?" Matilda asks me as I guide her out of the castle.

"Well, yes," I reply, "Is there something wrong with that?"

"Of course, there is!" she replies, "How are you going to locate her cottage?"

"What do you mean?" I ask.

As if realizing something, Matilda stops talking and just glances elsewhere.

Not satisfied by her actions, I say,

"You better answer my question truthfully."

Probably understanding that there is no point in lying, Matilda lets out a sigh and says,

"There is a barrier covering a small part of the forest."

"Barrier? What kind?"

"An illusory barrier that prevents outsiders from seeing what's going on inside."

Well, isn't that intriguing? I wonder if such a barrier will be able to fool my eyes.

"Why are you grinning?" Matilda asks with a doubtful look on her face, "Don't tell me, you're just going to blindly enter the forest?"

Shaking my head, I say,

"This barrier that you speak of, how was is it being maintained?"

Hearing this, a look of contemplation appears on her face for a few seconds before she closes her eyes and shakes her head.

"I don't know," she responds, "I never bothered asking."

How useless.

Well, she doesn't seem like the type to plot against her friends, so I'll leave it at that.

"Wait," she suddenly says, "How are we going to be traveling there?"

Taking it as the distance between the forest and Albion is simply too much, I beam a smile and say,

"You'll see."

Once the two of us are both outside the castle, I go over to somewhere with a lot of space before muttering,

"Tiamat, are you awake?"

After a few seconds, I get a slightly disordered response.

[[What? Is there another war already?]]

"No, I just need you to transport me somewhere."

[[Fine. Hurry up, I want to go back to sleep.]]

As I suspected, Tiamat seems to be sleeping more than she used to before.

What could be the reason for that, I wonder?

{That's due to the changes in Father's Code.}

Oh, right. My Code did go through some alterations recently, but what does that have with the matter at hand?

{Father's familiar is currently adapting to the environment and the new density of Father's energy.}

No wonder… Right, what about Aurora?

With that in mind, I pull my sleeve up, revealing a motionless Aurora.

Using my senses, I can tell that she is sleeping, although that's not visible from the outside as she doesn't have eyelids to close when sleeping.

Anyway, here I was wondering why has been so quiet recently. So, it turned out that she was just sleeping.

What's the reason for her? Don't tell me, the Code Energy is escaping from my body or something.

{Negative. This familiar seems to rest a lot due to its nature.}

So, Aurora is just lazy?

Looking at the figure coiled around my arm, I am unable to hold back from the temptation of rubbing the small head.

As a response to my actions, Aurora rubs her head against my finger as I sense happiness from her.

"Even his familiar…" I hear Matilda mutter.

"Hm?" I voice as I turn my head to face her.

Sensing my questioning gaze, Matilda looks around a little nervously as she explains,

"Familiars tend to be either very similar to their master or the exact opposite."

"So?" I say as realization dawns upon me the next moment.

In my past life, snakes were known to be vile and cunning creatures, which lead to the word being used as a term for two-faced individuals.

I wonder if such a thing is used here? If so, that would explain why Matilda acted the way she did just now.

Shaking these thoughts aside, I focus on the space in front of me while muttering,

"Tiamat, be prepared to manifestation."

[[Understood.]]

The next moment, a bright light covers the whole place as Tiamat appears in her dragon form.

"A dragon?!" Matilda exclaims while adjusting her glasses, "Also, what's with this size?!"

While laughing at her reaction, I slowly approach her and scoop her into my arms, earning a pointed glare from her.

Ignoring her, I float into the air and move toward Tiamat's back.

"You can fly?!" Matilda exclaims once more with a baffled expression on her face.

"As you can see, I indeed can fly. Why? Have you never seen someone fly before?"

"No," she bluntly replies.

"Well, now you have."

Without any further ado, I instruct Tiamat to fly over to the general location Tiffania's cottage is at.

After flying for some time, we finally arrive at the forest.

"So, now what?" Matilda asks me while looking down at the forest.

I don't say anything, but just focus my eyes and begin to make use of Clairvoyance to check every part of the forest out.

After a solid ten seconds, I finally 'run into' something interesting.

From the looks of it, I've found the barrier, as the space around where my sight 'is' seems to be unnatural.

I instruct Tiamat to head over to there, and once we're right on top of it, I 'pull' Tiamat back into my Code.

Matilda begins screaming as we both fall to the ground.

Naturally, I won't let her turn into meat paste just like this, so I telekinetically pull her into my arms as I pass through some thin membrane before making contact with the ground a second later.

With Matilda in my arms, I begin to curiously look around the place, until I set my sight on the cottage that I came here for.

"Let me down!" Matilda says in a slightly irritated tone.

What's with her attitude?

"Sure," I respond before letting her simply fall to the ground.

"Ouch," she yelps as she hits the ground before she looks at me and complains, "What was that for?!"

Shaking my head, I ignore her as I begin walking toward the cottage.

Using my senses, I check it out, and upon doing so, I notice that there is no one inside.

She's not here, huh?

Well, I should check the cottage out to see if there is anything interesting that's worth looking into.

"What are you doing?" Matilda says as she walks into the cottage and sees me looking around.

"Observing," I respond.

As Matilda is about to say something, I sense dozens of presences quite a distance away along with a scream.

My body seems to jolt into action as I directly run toward the location where the voice came from while ignoring Matilda's yells behind me.

In a few seconds, I reach the location just in time to witness a bunch of armed men approaching a wounded Tiffania that's unconsciously lying down on the ground with a basket of fruits beside her.

Seeing the arrow protruding from her back, a cold sensation seems to spread within me as I raise my arm and directly slice the men closes to her in half using Holy Slash.

Alerted, the other men nearby all begin looking around as someone shouts,

"Who are you?! Reveal yourself!"

So, he's the leader, huh?

I can't risk Tiffania's life, so this needs to be done right.

Focusing my senses, I directly activate Time-Stop, leading to complete stillness.

Not wasting a single second, I swiftly arrive beside Tiffania and move her away before going back and the men while Time-Stop is still active.

After I've punched about twenty men, Time-Stop deactivates which results in the spectacular show of several men bursting into bits of flesh.

Horrified, the rest of the men present all look toward me while tightening their hold on their weapons.

"Send help, immediately," I hear a man mutter, "We've made contact with a troublesome opponent."

As my brows turn into a frown, I pull out Excalibur from the storage ring and position myself before dashing toward the closest man.

Before he can react, I directly chop his head in half and proceed to sprint toward my next target.

"Shoot him!" I hear a man exclaim.

"But, My Lord, our men…"

"Just do it or else we will all die here!"

The moment his words fade away, dozens of arrows are shot toward me.

What's strange is that the speed of the arrows is extremely abnormal.

Naturally, these arrows are unable to reach me as I cancel all their vectors before they can do so.

As I do so, I sense movement on my left arm move as Aurora slithers down from my sleeve.

Taking in a deep breath, I use Paragon's Eyes to observe all the men here and notice that almost all of them have pitch-black souls.

Having found a way to easily finish this battle, I put most of my focus into circulating my Holy Essence, meanwhile, Aurora prevents the men from shooting arrows at me.

After a few seconds, I send a burst of light out before directly activating Divine Retribution.

This results in screams of utter pain and despair from the men as their bodies begin 'burning'.

Seeing them in such a state, I raise Excalibur before swinging it in the direction where most of them are.

As soon as I do so, a wave of destructive energy escapes and moves toward the men like a wide blade, destroying everything in its path.

With most of the men dead, while the rest are suffering, I walk over to where I had placed Tiffania while Aurora slithers back to my arm.

Then, I don't waste a single moment in pulling the arrow out of her back.

Upon doing so, I notice that the tip is made of a crystal rather than steel or metal.

Could this be the reason why the arrows were so fast?

Setting that thought aside for the moment, I begin making use of Healing Factor on Tiffania.

A few seconds later, her expression which was that of pain shifts to a more comfortable look as a small smile appears on her face.

Well then, I need to leave this location and go back into the barrier.

With that thought set in mind, I place arm under Tiffania and lift her.

However, the moment I do so, her eyes shoot open as an expression of fear spreads across her face.

"It's okay," I say, "You're safe now."

Tiffania looks into my eyes as a slightly confused look appears on her face.

"Do I know you?" she asks me after a few moments.

Beaming her a smile, I say,

"Well, you should. I'm your cousin, Wales Tudor."

"Huh?" a bewildered voice escapes from Tiffania's lips as she looks at me with a baffled expression on her face.

"Cousin?" she asks me disbelievingly.

"Oh, I suppose you didn't know, huh? Your father is my father's brother," I explain as a wave of discomfort washes over me upon uttering the word 'my father'.

Of course, I don't let that show on my face as I continue 'explaining',

"I came here to meet you, but I didn't expect to run such a situation. What was that? Who were the men chasing after you?"

"Ah… Uh, I don't know," she replies before her eyes suddenly widen as she exclaims, "The townspeople! They said that they have taken them!"

"Townspeople?" I ask.

"They're those that live near here. They said that they've already taken them," Tiffania explains as an anxious look appears on her face.

Seeing her like this, I pull her into an embrace as I say in a low voice,

"It's fine, don't worry. We'll deal with soon and save the townspeople."

Tiffania seems to fight comfort in my words and actions as she hugs me back, making me realize the softness of the mounds pressing against my chest.

Reluctantly breaking the warm hug, I say seriously,

"We need to get back to the cottage."

Understanding the severity of the situation, Tiffania nods before she begins looking around as she asks,

"Have you seen a basket nearby?"

"Yes," I say before getting up while carrying her in my arms.

Tiffania is unable to make sense of what's happening as I swiftly go to where the basket is.

Once there, I confirm that all the men are dead before using telekinesis to put all the fruits back in the basket and pull it toward myself.

Then, I begin dashing toward where the cottage is while running a quick scan of the area for foes.

--

"You're finally back," Matilda complains while looking at me before she shifts her sight to Tiffania who is still in my arms.

"What happened?" she asks while frowning.

"Some men were attacking her," I explain while walking toward the only bed in the cottage, "So, I took care of them."

I lay Tiffania down and place the basket on a small table nearby before saying,

"More of them will most likely appear."

As soon as the words leave my mouth, I sense Tiffania's anxiety increase, so I place my hand on her head and begin rubbing it.

"Good thing we're here," I say while looking into Tiffania's blue eyes with a smile on my face, "Right?"

As I'm about to say something else, I sense the space above the cottage distorting as a 'crack' appears in the sky.

From within the crack, emerges a yellow figure at an extreme speed right in front of the cottage.

Then, the next moment, the door of the cottage is opened as an excited Irene enters the room while exclaiming,

"Father, I've arrived!"