Free Web NovelChapter 50: Saga 50: Wrong Turn
Three days after the capital’s rebuilding effort had settled into a steady rhythm, Kael found himself standing at the edge of the eastern travel gate with a pack slung over one shoulder and Sylvia beside him, both of them dressed for a long road rather than a fight.
"Remind me why we’re doing this the slow way," Kael said, eyeing the caravan lined up ahead of them. "I could just have the system teleport us straight there."
"Because," Sylvia said, adjusting the strap of her own bag, "Baldric specifically asked us to travel by caravan to Luscenidron. Public appearance, official diplomatic escort, all very normal and boring. The kind of thing that reminds the kingdom Azure Blake still does ordinary hunter work, not just apocalypse prevention."
"Normal and boring sounds nice, honestly."
"Don’t get used to it."
Yuki waved them off from the gate’s archway, Claire and Harriden flanking him, Adian somewhere behind already flirting with one of the caravan guards despite having met her four minutes earlier. "Try not to start any wars while you’re gone," Yuki called out. "Or start one and win it fast. Either’s fine, honestly."
"We’re delivering trade documents," Kael said. "Not conquering a province."
"With you two, it’s basically the same probability curve."
Kael laughed, climbing into the caravan’s lead cart alongside Sylvia, settling into the cushioned bench as the driver called out and the wheels began to turn. For a while, it really was ordinary—rolling hills outside the window, the creak of wagon wheels, Sylvia dozing lightly against his shoulder somewhere past the second hour.
Then the system spoke, and ordinary ended abruptly.
[Kael. I need you to not panic.]
’That’s never a good opening line.’
[Location Assist has detected an anomaly along our current route. A trap, most likely. Something’s been laid specifically for this caravan, timed to trigger roughly two hours from now.]
’What kind of trap?’
[Unclear specifics, but the signature reads similar to Black Ring corruption markers. Given recent history, I’m not willing to let you walk into it blind.]
Sylvia stirred beside him, sensing his sudden tension. "What’s wrong?"
"System’s picked up something. A trap, somewhere ahead on this route."
Her eyes sharpened instantly, dozing forgotten. "Black Ring?"
"Maybe. System’s not certain."
[I have a solution, but you’re not going to like it.]
’At this point I assume that’s just how you open every sentence.’
[Teleportation Assist can move us clear of the danger zone entirely. Problem is, the ambush covers most of the direct route to Luscenidron. To get you both fully clear, I’d need to jump considerably further than planned. I can’t guarantee precision landing at this range.]
’How much further are we talking?’
[Honestly? I’m not entirely sure until I commit to the jump. Somewhere considerably east of where you intended to go.]
Kael weighed the options for exactly as long as it took the caravan to hit a pothole hard enough to rattle his teeth. Whatever waited two hours down this road, walking the rest of the caravan straight into it wasn’t an option he could stomach, not after everything they’d already survived together as a team.
"Sylvia," he said quietly, "we need to get off this caravan. Now, quietly, before anyone notices."
She didn’t ask why twice. Years of instinct kicked in immediately, and within moments they’d slipped from the lead cart under the guise of stretching their legs during a brief rest stop, moving off toward a stand of trees at the road’s edge.
"Do it," Kael muttered under his breath. "Get us clear."
[Engaging Teleportation Assist. Brace yourselves, this is going to feel considerably worse than our usual jumps.]
The world folded around them in a blinding flash of white light, the ground dropping away beneath their feet in a sensation like falling and being crushed simultaneously. Kael’s stomach lurched violently, Sylvia’s grip on his arm tightening to the point of pain, and for one terrifying, stretched-out moment, neither of them could tell up from down at all.
Then, just as abruptly, the world reassembled itself around them—and it was nothing at all like the quiet forest road they’d left behind.
Golden spires rose in every direction, gleaming under a sun that felt somehow brighter, cleaner than the one back home. Bells tolled somewhere in the distance, layered in harmonies too precise to be anything but ceremonial. Robed figures in flowing white and gold moved through wide, immaculate plazas, murmuring prayers Kael didn’t recognize in a language that sounded ancient even to his untrained ear.
"Okay," Kael said slowly, taking in the scale of it all. "This is not Luscenidron."
Sylvia turned in a slow circle, equally stunned, taking in the towering cathedral dominating the skyline ahead of them, its facade carved with images of saints and holy wars long forgotten by the rest of the world. "No," she agreed. "It’s really, really not."
[So, small update. Turns out I overcorrected. By quite a lot.]
’Define quite a lot.’
[You’re currently standing in the central plaza of the Holy Capital of Songrel. Roughly nine hundred miles from where you were supposed to be.]
Kael closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Of course we are."
"At least the trap’s avoided," Sylvia offered, though her tone carried more amusement than comfort.
"Small mercies." Kael looked around at the imposing religious architecture surrounding them, at the robed clergy already beginning to notice the two strangely dressed, clearly foreign hunters standing in the middle of their sacred plaza. "So. Any idea how we’re supposed to explain this?"
[I’d suggest starting with ’sorry, wrong holy capital.’ Works every time.]
’It does not work every time. It has never worked, not once, in the entire history of you suggesting it.’
[Optimism costs nothing.]
A pair of temple guards were already approaching, hands resting cautiously on ceremonial spears that Kael suspected were considerably less ceremonial than they looked. Sylvia straightened beside him, falling automatically into the calm, composed posture she wore whenever a situation demanded diplomacy rather than swords.
"Let me handle this," she murmured.
"Please do."
Whatever explanation she was preparing, Kael had a distinct feeling this particular detour was about to become considerably more complicated than either of them had bargained for.
—
End of Chapter—
