If Grace had known this would happen, she would have never left her bedroom. She whimpered as she stepped on something and prayed it wasn't a cockroach or some kind of insect. Since it was so dark, she had no clue where she was going or how to get out of this mess she had stumbled into. She wasn't even sure how she ended up in this mess. One moment she was putting away one book to grab another one, the next she was in some dark place.
She knew castles could have secret passageways, but she didn't expect to fall into one by pure chance. That just seemed like poor construction on the builder's part. If she ever met the person or found a way to contact them, she would file a complaint. She hoped that Luke would realize she was missing and come to find her, because she wasn't sure if she could do it all on her own.
The sound of something moving stopped her in her tracks. That definitely wasn't her. She frantically scanned her surroundings for any indication of what was m
Luke had never seen this many mana stones before. They practically covered the whole room. He wouldn't be surprised if the walls themselves were made of pure mana stone, given the sheer number of mana stones in front of him.Not only that, they were in all different colors, ranging from pink to clear to purple. He had only ever seen light blue mana stones whenever he encountered them with his party on their journey to defeat the demon king, and those rare occurrences only happened because the demons were trying to transport them to the demon king. They stopped them, of course, and presented it to the kingdom to be used.From what he knew, mana stones were highly sought after. He never learned of the reason why angels or demons wanted them, but he knew humans used it as a replacement for low mana to get around their inability to use certain magic. Someone who only had an Uncommon mana stat could use Rare magic and maybe even Epic magic if they had a mana stone. Of cours
They were back in front of the door again with Grace huffing and puffing at his side. Seeing her struggle was very concerning to him, and he worried that at this rate, she might relapse and collapse before they returned. This hadn't been what he had intended when he had asked her if she wanted her to come with him to the library. It was supposed to be a leisurely activity. She wasn't supposed to be pushing herself to exhaustion after resting. It defeated the whole purpose. "We can take a break," he suggested. Grace's response was to push the door open and say, "Let's go. I'm sick of this place." Well, if she insisted, he would follow her lead. Still, he couldn't believe how different she behaved compared to when they first arrived and in the past life. Could someone really change in only three days? This wasn't the first time she acted 'out of character', and he wondered if he had been wrong that she wasn't faking it. Luke instantly discarded the idea. She would have to be a great
Luke cataloged her appearance in a second. She wore long robes that covered every inch of my body save for her face and hands, though it didn't make much of a difference. A white veil rested on top of her head, and a white blindbold was wrapped around her eyes. If this wasn't such a serious situation, he would have commented aloud about how she must really like white."Hello, if you are seeing this message, then you are also a Saintess or potential Saintess like me," she said as the two broke apart to take a closer look at her.His eyes widened at the sudden declaration while Grace asked, "Saintess? Didn't Kayla mention it before? What is she talking about?""Welcome to my sanctum. I had this place built for any future Saintess to develop their skills or to seal their potential if they choose to," she continued."What? What do you mean by sealing their potential?" he demanded.Unfortunately, whatever magic the Saintess had used only left a recordin
Offering his back to her, he felt her get on after several moments of inaction. Once he was sure she was secured on his back, he approached the door. It opened the moment they got close, assumingly in response to Grace's presence.As he stepped through and reentered the library, his mind was still reeling from what they had learned. Apparently, this secret space had been created by a previous Saintess. Since it had been mentioned several times that the Saintess class was rare, it was possible she had left the message hundreds of years ago.The real clincher was that she had said they could not share any of this information with anyone else, including the angels. That itself was very suspicious. Why would the Saintess keep secrets from the side she was on? What kind of information was she hiding in that place?Luke wanted to know, but he needed Grace to find out. Unfortunately, she was in no shape to visit the place again, if ever. He couldn't force her to go unl
Luke stared up at Sir Gilbert, waiting to hear the training results ranking. Despite the changes made to the training regimen, he still insisted on punishing the last five if they remained at the bottom by the end of the week. He hadn't even mentioned what the punishment was going to be. Well, with the training having gotten easier, they should have had more chances of rising in the rankings.Grace shifted anxiously next to him. He couldn't see why she was so worried, considering she hadn't been in the bottom five even on the third day when she had been absent. The only ones who had anything to worry about were the last five from the first day of training, one of whom was Joshua.Thinking about that drunkard, he tried to recall if he had ever shown up on any of the days of training. He knew that for the first three days he had been absent, but surely he wouldn't have had a problem doing simple jogs and stretches. Unfortunately, he was drawing a blank, which couldn't be
"The princess will see you now," the servant standing in front of the open door said as he finished adjusting his clothes.Luke took one last good look at himself in the mirror before he said, "I'm coming."Following the servant down the hallway, he considered all the possible locations the princess would use for the meeting. The most obvious one would be the throne room. He had seen it plenty of times in the past whenever the princess required their presence. It was for that reason, he immediately discarded it. That place was meant for public meetings, and while she could still have a private meeting there, it wouldn't feel private if her intentions were what he thought they were.The next obvious choices would be an office or an empty room. He was more inclined to believe it was the latter, considering he had never seen her step foot in an office. The latter also gave her more options to pick from.Finally, they stopped in front of a room he hadn't expe
"Sir Gilbert, what do you think of him?" the princess said as she looked out her window.The knight looked up from where he was kneeling and said, "Luke Hellwalker is a decent and earnest young man. Out of all the heroes, he was one of the rare few who consistently arrived for training without fail every day. Even when the training was difficult, he didn't complain.""Is that so?" She hummed thoughtfully before turning her attention to the other two in the room. "Head maid, head butler, report."The woman spoke first. "He actively helped the maids after training and lunch on the first three days. Afterwards, he didn't spend as much time with them as he was busy with training. All the maids said he was quite polite and charming.""The ones under my care also said the same thing," said the head butler. "They professed that he was everything they expected from a hero and more. They feel reassured to have him on our side.""That's good," she said.
Luke looked on amused as Grace's eyes seemed to sparkle at everything she saw. One moment she would be pointing something out to him, and the next she was running off to check out the next shiny thing to catch her attention. She was like a child in a toy store. Going into the city was doing wonders for her.He also kept an eye out for 'Kayla'. She had been part of the first group to depart from the castle to descend into the city. Apparently, an order for when they would visit the city had been decided by Sir Gilbert, and it was determined by their final scores on the training results ranking.This slight hiccup was an annoyance since it meant he was separate from Grace. He didn't mind 'Kayla' going with a different group as that had been part of the plan.Fortunately, they didn't seem to mind him waiting for her right between the castle and the city. She had been so relieved to see him waiting for her that she clung to him like a koala. Their brief parting had