60 The Empresss New Clothes (1/2)

”You want to use a murderer as our guide?” Catherine asked perplexed.

”Well, at the very least he can give us some intel about the area,” Joshua replied.

”Leave it to me,” Eric said, ”Considering he fainted just from seeing that ridiculous costume, I'll have no trouble extracting some knowledge out of him.”

”He's speaking Easan, though. Do you need help with translating?” Catherine inquired.

”I think it will be all right as long as I'm in range of Luna.”

”Actually, this will be a good opportunity to see how well a conversation with a native goes using Luna's instant translation,” Joshua remarked.

Eric nodded and headed downstairs. Boris followed carrying the two corpses, they decided to put them in the basement for the time being. Unfortunately, they couldn't afford to organize a proper burial for them. Cynthia soon left as well and resumed searching the place. When they were alone, Catherine sat on the bed and sighed.

”Seriously, what kind of mess did we just step into?” she told Joshua.

”I have to admit, even I am starting to find the whole situation pretty absurd,” he replied.

”We've barely arrived and everything is escalating to ridiculous levels. We haven't even tried to enter the city! Do you honestly think we can enter that place unnoticed?”

Joshua remained quiet for a moment, seemingly lost in thoughts. Finally, he replied: ”I see, you're considering Eric and Cynthia's suggestion that we should head back for now?”

She nodded and said: ”I don't want to abandon the other parties and I know you're the one with the most to gain from this place. But you said it yourself, there are thousands of things that could go wrong once we approach. We just got lucky this time things turned out so well.”

Hearing this, Joshua sat next to her and put his hand on her shoulder.