Dawn- An age of Darkness

Even with cloak, people were recognizing me on spot.

"Let\'s go meet the king first," Alisa whispered. "There\'s a possibility there might be a third one in this country too."

I liked that idea. Lately, Alisa was saying a lot of witty things. But that\'s when I remembered, she\'d always been like this. I just never paid her enough attention. I always treated her like a child, but I guess that was just my shortcoming. 

And wait, how many frigging mystics were there?

Anyway, I finally decided to respect her opinions as best I could. "Say, can you arrange an audience with the king?" I gave the earl a good talk and he sure wasn\'t happy to hear that. 

The nobles gave me looks too. I guess they weren\'t expecting that. Did they think I\'d melt just because they were offering me a mystic equipment?

I guess they did. 

The earl grinned. "You\'re still considering." He chuckled. He controlled himself with a sigh. "It can be arranged. We can start for the capital as early as noon and reach there by tomorrow morning. But you\'ll have to leave without me. The war would start exactly two days from now, and my town is in the frontlines: if I were to leave now-"

I guess this guy was out of options too. 

"There\'s no need. I can take us there within half an hour." Ve proudly flaunted her nonexistent chest. "And get us back within another half. Assuming the audience takes an hour, it\'ll be a two-hour journey."

Well, that was a bold claim.

I still believed her. After all, she was a dragon. 

"That reminds me, who are these people? You never introduced yourselves." The earl finally asked the question he should have asked when we first met. But it was better that he hadn\'t. "Even with the best of our tech, it\'s impossible to travel that fast!"

I sighed again. "Well, do introduce yourselves."

This wasn\'t going to end well. 

"Veniolar Xerces, Demigod of fire: a dragon of mount Dragnoid." Ve proudly introduced herself. The sheer pride of this girl kind of still amazed me. 

\'Fire? Oh-\' I knew Xerphas was going to send someone good, but I never thought he was going to send his own daughter: assuming he was the god of fire, which he probably was. Something was really fishy here though. Either way, Ve was a god and a dragon. Not the combination anyone would have wanted to mess with. 

At least I certainly didn\'t. 

Everybody\'s faces went a bit pale. And that was just with Ve. We had another one remaining. 

I felt bad for them already. 

"Alisa Ion-Damsiella, Princess of the forgotten kingdom of the west and also- the demigod of ice." Alisa gracefully presented herself. 

Those were a lot of heavy titles. 

Faces went even paler, my face was among those. What the hell was up with this world\'s names! And I thought the geezer\'s name was weird!

Sweats were all over the place and the earl\'s face was twitching a lot. "I-I see. Ahem*, lord Darr-cc and Lad-y Venio-" The guy stood up immediately and everyone in the room now go on their knees like they were praying or something. 

Apparently, now these guys felt the heat. And wasn\'t this a bit too dramatic?

"You don\'t have to change your attitude. There\'s no need. They are my trusted companions and that\'s all you should worry about." After all, I most certainly didn\'t want to think about all this. 

I could literally hear his breath even from two meters away. I could hear the gasps of people around us too. I guess seeing two flesh and blood half gods was too much for them. 

None of them got up though. Even the soldiers were literally worshipping us. 

"Wh-what abvou- you-" His speech was suffering a lot. 

"I\'m human. Don\'t worry about it." At least I believed I was human. Now, I wasn\'t so sure anymore though. I had godly blood in my veins, according to various sources and even I wasn\'t sure what that meant. But at the end of the day, I was human at heart regardless of what I\'d become. 

Yeah, he wasn\'t buying that. But he did calm down a bit. "We c-can really reach the capital in h-half an hour?"

"Yes."

"P-please sort that thing you were talking about, let\'s have breakfast a-and be on our way then. I\'ll be sure to send a message to m-my father." He was still breathing heavily and stuttering a lot but he seemed to be getting a bit better.

Well, this certainly wasn\'t the reaction I was hoping for, but oh well. 

"That was the plan." I started walking out. \'Kind of.\'

No one stopped us. No one dared. They didn\'t even look up to us anymore. Heads were all down. 

Were gods really that great?

I didn\'t think so. 

Just outside though- "Hey, you\'re royalty?"

"Yes. I was once a princess, long ago." Alisa smiled and looked proud. No wonder, she saw through almost everything. 

We kept on walking out of the hall. 

 "I\'m technically a princess too by the way." Ve volunteered some unwanted information. I wished she\'d keep her mouth shut. 

I almost wanted to bang my head against a wall. Why was my life so full of royalty and politics!

Sigh. 

But anyway, I had a bunny to catch. "Let\'s go."

***

Walking around was kind of a chore. 

I actually didn\'t notice till now that my whole body stung. I had no visible wounds, not even one, but everything ached: everything. 

We were attracting a lot of attention while walking down the road. The atmosphere was a bit brighter too. Children were finally running around, there were hustles and chatter down the roads and the small stores. This town finally looked like an actual town. And it was just morning too.

I was getting praises and loads of attention. And not to mention I was getting way too much attention among the girls. 

I really didn\'t like the glares coming from my sides though. 

Meanwhile, my eyes lids were in the middle of shutting down: I felt more and more tired by the second. 

"By the way, I had wounds last night and drank a drop of elixir and used some magic on me. I\'m not sure, which one worked but my body aches a lot. And I feel like I could fall asleep any minute." And I was also talking with my eyes closed. 

I didn\'t know which one of them patted my back, but it felt so good, I kind of almost fell over. And then she proceeded to grab me, so I didn\'t fall. It was probably Ve. 

She sighed. "Sometimes, I wonder what is wrong with you. Let\'s go sit over there." Yup, it was Ve.

I had no idea where she was leading me, as my eyes were still closed. It was like, I was feeling sleepy one minute, and in the next couldn\'t even keep my eyes open anymore and fell asleep for a few seconds, every few seconds. Definitely not the best time to talk a walk. 

I got seated and this time, Alisa ruffled my hair. Her hands were smaller than Ve\'s, it was easy to tell. She whispered something. I couldn\'t follow it, it was too fast. 

And moments later, my eyes blitzed open!

I saw Ve\'s hands over my head and her hands glowed in white light: holy magic. 

I looked around haphazardly and there was a small crowd in front of me and I was seated on a bench. 

"What happened?" I was kind of confused. 

The last few minutes were weird. I didn\'t know what was going on. 

"You actually had a curse on you." Alisa was right in front of me and she crossed her arms. "Hard to imagine you were still awake even through all that. I guess we can thank your other curse for that."

"What did I have?" I still had a curse on me? Cause I certainly didn\'t feel anything. I knew I had the regeneration curse, but what else did I have?

"You were infected with a sleep parasite. In humans, it only acts like a sleep drug, but the more mana you have, the worse it becomes. And in your case, with both the curses fighting against each other, everything got slowed and that\'s why you were feeling mildly sleepy till now. But the moment you started to relax and all the fatigue caught up, the sleep curse overtook and that happened. I couldn\'t cure it fully yet. It\'ll take some time."

"My healing powers are very limited, so don\'t expect that ache you talked about being fully cured either," Ve said. 

Now that she mentioned it, I did feel a lot better. 

"That\'s great and all, but what about them?" The crowd looked rather worried. 

"They were just here to make you nothing bad happened to you." Alisa shrugged. "As if they had any power." She mumbled. 

"Uh-huh." I did not want to think about it. "Anyway, let\'s head over the inn."

I recognized the surroundings. 

"Right."

We got up and started walking. The crowd didn\'t follow us everywhere, but I got the impression we were under constant watch. I never actually received attention like this, not even in Alfeime. Back there, people were just staring, not following me around. 

The inn was close and it took another minute to actually reach the place. 

It was early morning, probably around eight-thirty. If only my watch was still alive. The poor thing got dissolved way back when. 

There were little to no customers going in. it wasn\'t like this yesterday though. Anyway, we went in. 

At least now there won\'t be my followers stalk- following me. 

"Welcome!"

We were welcomed just like yesterday and as expected, there weren\'t many customers in here. I guess most people just wanted some fun night service. 

The staffs were here but I didn\'t see as many as I saw yesterday. Maybe they\'d come later, or only worked at night? I didn\'t know. 

I walked towards the girl at the counter and she immediately put on a smile. 

"I\'m looking for my bunny. Have you seen it?" I cut to the chase, I didn\'t have time after all. 

She thought for a second, looked back and forth between Alisa and Ve. Something was up. And I didn\'t like to be kept out of the loop like this. "I\'m not sure. I don\'t think so."

"Do you mind if I take a look upstairs?" I mean, we still paid for the room, so it was our room anyway, at least till noon. 

There was a lot more back and forth action and finally- "Sure." She was a bit reluctant but she permitted me regardless.

Very suspicious. 

And with that, I headed up straight away. 

The stairs didn\'t stop me. The hallway felt small. Nothing could get in the way, of my lovely bunny and me. 

I reached and slammed the door open. 

Something was inside.

\'What the hell!?\'

"Bit-Biteria!"

Oh my god. 

My lovely bunny- I could almost cry. In fact, I did.