Book 7: Chapter 17
I couldn’t sleep too well that night since a young guy is bound to have perverted thoughts after sharing a bath an older-sister type female. Whenever I shut my eyes, the scene in the bathroom resurfaced in my mind. I can’t knock on Luna’s door to do “that” with her either…… So I was mentally degraded the next day of the journey…… Luna looked at me somewhat concerned and asked: “What is the matter, your majesty? Did you not sleep well last night? Or did you miss Miss Nier?”
I smiled helplessly. They were connected somewhat, except that I wasn’t missing Nier…… Luna could’ve helped me out…… But what am I going to tell Luna? I shook my head and replied: “Nothing, Luna. I just didn’t get enough sleep. But it’s all right. Let’s continue.”
“You must speak out if you do not feel well.”
Luna looked at me hesitantly. I looked ahead and didn’t say anything. Luna doesn’t know how to ride horses so she rode with Lorana. If Luna gets tired, I’ll let her rest in a Earth Dragon carriage. I reckon the Earth Dragon carriage is my best invention yet because it’s particularly stable and it has plenty of space. Mom originally intended to give me a few more Earth Dragons so that I could make a small room out of one carriage. Inside would be a bed and I could take a few maids with me too, but I turned the offer down.
I’m going for business, not a vacation after all. I need guards, not maids holding me back. I looked behind me at the horse carriages and Earth Dragon escorts in the middle. The Earth Dragon carriage escort walked steadily on the ground like an old ox. For safety’s sake, I spread the weapons out in the five carriages. That way, they won’t end up all lost if we get attacked. Repeated-firing guns are extremely lethal weapons to humans after all. They’re one of my secret weapons for my journey south this time.
I asked Mommy-Vyvyan to cast a time-boundary around the Earth Dragon carriages transporting large volumes of ammunition and gun-powder, to keep the gun-powder within its safe timeframe. The only way to remove the boundary is by opening the door to the storage. This way, if someone were to attack my escorts and explode my carriage carrying gun-powder, my guard unit won’t be completely wiped out by the attack.
My guards are currently armed with one sword and one gun which has a barrel that allows for six shots. We will only have to open the storage for them to reload gun-powder if we enter a prolonged fight. If we’re only entering skirmishes then they shouldn’t need to empty their guns, and we can reload after reaching safety.
The great plains of the south certainly live up to their reputation. We’ve been travelling for half a day since leaving the royal capital yet we were still in the wild great plains. There were only harvested crops and Earth Dragon cages in the snow. Lorana felt unwell due to the weather so she was curled up atop her horse and silent. She wrapped herself up with her thick cloak. I felt sorry for her. She couldn’t withstand the cold winters here despite living in humanity’s lands for so long.
We’re still not that far from the royal capital so we should be able to see inns and hotels. I usually like hotels more because I don’t want to trouble an inn as the prince. Inns are tiny with only one or two people working there. Asking one or two people to take care of the hundreds of people here would be too exhausting, and we’d be hogging society’s resources.