92: Chapter 92 Frederica has found her way

A figure that had left a deep impression on her heart despite their short acquaintance was blown to pieces before her eyes.

Frederica knelt powerlessly on the ground, her hands supporting her weight as her emerald-green hair veiled her face.

Behind her, Saldari and Alice, who had finally regained their senses, approached with small steps.

"Your Highness, please..." Alice spoke with a sob in her voice.

"I know." Frederica's tone lacked its usual lightheartedness, devoid of any emotional fluctuation.

Slowly standing up, she remained expressionless. After gazing at the distant rooftop platform for a while, she turned and walked toward the inn.

"Your Highness." Saldari drew his longsword and round shield. "You and Alice go back first. I'll go retrieve Mr. Zhang Mu's rem—"

"There's no point, Saldari." She kept her back to him. "He is already... dead."

The pain was not violent; it was like a trickling mountain stream—silent in the depths of her heart, yet undeniably and slowly flowing.

"Back to the inn."

"But Your Highness..."

"I said, back to the inn."

The air was silent for a moment before the round shield Saldari had raised slowly lowered to his side. "As you command, Your Highness."

"Don't be sad," she said, seemingly to the two elves behind her, yet also as if to herself. "I am going to uproot the magic families of Bala City and level them to the ground."

Her voice was calm, but the content was chilling.

"Magic families usually don't leave the city en masse. If we want to leave none alive, we must strike within the city. If we do that, the Church will be our enemy," Saldari said, his head bowed.

"Then we take down the Church as well."

Uttering the words with moderate weight, she lifted her feet and walked toward the crowd of townspeople who had run out of their houses to watch the commotion.

The two elves didn't press further and followed her.

They passed the man at the front of the crowd—a man with short golden hair wearing simple linen clothes—and squeezed into the throng, disappearing into the distance.

The man had an ordinary appearance and looked to be in his thirties.

Like everyone else, he sized up the three rare elves.

However, compared to the others, there was no curiosity or novelty in his eyes, only indifference.

"I was worried about how to explain the elves accompanying him to Her Highness Avril, but this makes things convenient."

Leaving the crowd, he quickly walked to the grassy field outside the city, pulled a crystal from the storage bag at his waist, and infused it with mana.

After a short while, a gryphon flapped its wings and descended from the sky.

"A pity for the little fellow I had high hopes for. You should have learned to stay calm."

Stepping onto the gryphon's back and steadying himself, he glanced at Bala City shrouded in the night, his heart filled with a myriad of emotions.

A moment later, he tugged the reins and soared into the sky.

...

The second day.

Just as dawn was breaking, Frederica's group packed their small belongings and checked out of their rooms at the counter.

Then they went to the market to buy a carriage. The three elves drove the carriage out of the city, heading all the way toward Kas Town.

They weren't in a great hurry, not swinging the leather whip hard, letting the two horses pulling the carriage trot along.

A day and a night passed. As the sun rose on the second day, they reached the forest west of Kas Town.

Tying the carriage to a tree trunk, Frederica led the way with Alice and Saldari following behind as they headed into the depths.

After about an hour, the three elves reached a small clearing overgrown with weeds, where several wolf bone skeletons lay scattered on the ground.

This was the place where she and Zhang Mu had first met.

The breeze that had brushed her face that night was present now as well.

Recalling Zhang Mu from that night, who had stealthily glanced at the tips of her ears, Frederica instinctively wanted to smile, but she couldn't.

She murmured in her heart—weeds can't walk around like I can, trees can't draw a bow and arrow like I do...

She chanted it for a long time, but it was no use.

The witty words that used to seem magical, making her smile the moment she said them, were completely ineffective now.

She raised her palm and opened it in front of her chest, looking at the white button lying quietly in her hand.

After a moment, she took a silver-white necklace from her storage bag, threaded it through the button's hole, and wore it around her fair neck.

Clenching the button pendant with her right hand and holding it against her chest, she stood in silence.

"Zhang Mu, I still don't understand why you weren't willing to wait. You could have waited until you were strong enough to come back and easily deal with the magic families of Bala City."

"But the Frederica who was always lost has found her direction."

She recalled the bits and pieces of her life growing up.

It seemed the thing she said most was—I don't know.

She didn't know why her clansmen fought over magic books, didn't know why her mother had to become King, didn't know why Saldari and Alice followed a Crown Prince like her, who had no 'ambition,' to travel the continent.

Similarly, she didn't know why Zhang Mu insisted on going to his death.

The hand holding the button pendant slowly tightened, as if this button were her heart, which was flowing with sorrow and a faint, stinging pain.

Clenching it might make her feel a bit better.

Taking a deep breath, she walked forward a few steps, crouched down, and touched a blade of grass.

Her memory had always been extraordinary; the position of this blade of grass was where Zhang Mu's foot had stepped that night.

The crushed grass had regained its vitality, but the dead could never be brought back to life.

After a long while, she stood up and said to the two elves behind her, "I am going back to our clan lands to become the King of our people."

She wanted to destroy the magic families of Bala City, and the Church was an obstacle.

Therefore, she needed great power.

To obtain the power strong enough to complete her goal, she was now going back to that homeland she had once desperately fled from.

Saldari and Alice glanced at each other, then simultaneously dropped to one knee before the figure in front of them, their right hands over their chests. "We offer our eternal loyalty to the Crown Prince of the Elven Race—Her Highness Frederica."

The two of them had been waiting for these words, waiting for the moment to speak them.

How many years had it been?

The long lives of elves made it a bit hard for them to remember clearly.

In any case, it had been a very long time.

After so long, the opportunity had finally come, yet the two elves weren't happy at all.

Having traveled the continent for many years, they had seen all sorts of beings: humans, demi-humans, dwarves, undead, dragons, and so on.

But a human as interesting and special as Zhang Mu was someone they were meeting for the first time.

They had thought they could travel the continent together; they hadn't expected the day of parting to come so suddenly, catching them completely off guard.

Frederica raised her hand, signaling them to rise.

Looking at this forest she had only visited once, her gaze became complex. "Zhang Mu, you broke your promise to me."

"Is it because Frederica is not more important than the conviction in your heart?"

Conviction?

Zhang Mu, what exactly was your conviction?

She felt that this was a question worth exploring for the rest of her life.

They stood quietly, no longer talking, and the forest fell into silence.

A light breeze happened to brush past, and the long emerald hair behind Frederica fluttered gently.

Tucking the messy strands of hair that were tickling the corners of her eyes behind her head, she took a deep breath.

"Saldari, Alice."

"Your Highness, we are here."

"I'm sorry. After we return to the clan, you will have to work hard for a while."

"For Your Highness, we have absolutely no complaints."

Frederica turned and strode toward the edge of the forest, the two elves following closely behind.

In that spot, the blade of grass that had been swaying with the breeze slowly steadied itself.

The wind stopped, and the grass stopped with it, but some things were still moving forward.

As they say, love rises with the wind, but when the wind stops, the heart remains restless.

As Frederica was about to disappear among the trees, the white button pendant on her chest swayed back and forth with her pace.

It shone brilliantly under a beam of golden light filtering through the dense foliage.