Chapter 146: Episode 17: Chapter 1 (1/2)

Chapter 146: Episode 17: Chapter 1

Translator: EndlessFantasy TranslationEditor: EndlessFantasy Translation

In the first month of their Southern travels, O'Neil Andrew Morisette had not smiled while Alanis had refused to greet anyone on their way.

The young couple was challenging each other's patience, just because of one trivial matter.

Oscar faintly recalled that the cause of the incident was the Princess' displeasure of the carriage's seats, which was further incited when he'd then said, ”I couldn't possibly transform this place into a bedroom, could I?”

The man thought that his wife liked a bedroom. At the same time, these minor exchanges of sarcasm of theirs had amused the Young Lady nearby. Alanis was a princess and most of the princesses in the world had fiery tempers. Their furious expressions were quite similar, but there was no one to testify to that.

”You must apologize! Do you think I'm some woman who merely attaches her life to a bedroom?” Alanis stared maliciously at the husband who spoke with no concern for others. She then glanced sideways at the Young Lady and was baffled when she noticed that Sasha E. was grinning. She was being scorned! Alanis pictured herself slapping the Young Lady hard. Of course, in front of Oscar, all of these could only be in her imaginations.

”Don't act like a mental patient, you know those were not my intentions!” this was the Prince's answer, and the answer greatly deepened the Princess' emotional wounds. The Princess questioned her husband aloud, ”You don't love me, but do you have to demonstrate the truth in front of your sister? You intended for me to be embarrassed! You…”

Oscar rolled his eyes, why was she having these thoughts? Weren't things fine as they were? There was no boisterous woman who applied makeup to her eyebrows, and there was certainly no absurd questions usually inquired by mental patients! The married man lifted his head an gazed upward at the skies, wanting to show the heavens his eye rolls.

From Dulin toward the South, be it Vielonna or Bragg, the routes were no easy trips! Although Vielonna and Bragg were each in different directions, there was only one route from the Capital which encompassed three Provinces. First was the Damorel Province before the path turned slightly towards the East to the Phishella Province. It then continued towards the Southern West to the Province of Kinostras and lastly leading towards the South.

In the ancient city of Yang in Kinostras, the road was split into two crossroads: one led to the highlands in the East, of which its destination was the Bragg Fortress of the Bandel Province, and the other towards the Southern West, ultimately reaching the Music City within a week's time after traversing numerous rural areas.

His High Imperial Highness, together with his family and troops, reached Yang only after running for one month. As the Southern pathway's most important crossroad, Yang was not only a large-scale gathering spot of resources, it was also an extensive military camp. The camp acted as the base for the whole Southern army's reserves while being the largest smelter in the South of the Titan Empire.

Due to the establishment of the smelter, the skies were grey throughout all four seasons in Yang City. With combustion wastes and ash powders being released into the lower atmosphere of the city and being inhaled into the people's lungs, it was no wonder that the Westland presented with the highest rates of tuberculosis and asthma.

Living in such a place was never an attractive prospect. If you happened to have the iron filings in the air enter your eyes and damage the fragile cells of the eye, congratulations! You are now a member of the ”Yang's Blind”!

Oscar did not fancy Yang, as the citizens all covered their heads, leaving only their eyes and noses in sight. However, this made the people look like the Southern terrorists. Looking around, you would find yourself in the middle of a city filled with terrorists! The Prince's coachman, Wozakad Elladan, gave a rare smile as he observed the men and women on the streets in excitement, ”Thank God! It seems like I'm really back to my hometown!”

That's right! Speaking of hometowns, it reminded Oscar that Yang had another narrow path leading to Narcissus County. Not many people walked the route as it was only recently constructed by the Imperial Guards for the purpose of reinforcements for the destruction of Narcissus County.

His Highness Prince O'Neil strongly believed in the purposes of the new pathway. He was the Marshall of the Guards, Imperial Military Intelligence Bureau Chief, and had familiarized himself with the dirty tactics employed by the Morisette family against the Andrews.

Maybe … Alanis had been plotting something! The Princess should have heard of the famous City of Crossroads but had injured her eyes even before stepping foot into the city. Percy spent half an hour trying to calm the Princess but he failed miserably. At her side, the impatient Prince had no choice but to order his soldier to restrict the Princess from thrashing her limbs about. As a result, the Princess screamed even louder!

Eventually, Percy managed to extract the tiny iron filing. Fortunately, the piece was not too sharp. But the Princess' voice was a totally different case as her shouting and whining had exhausted the men.

”You shouted on purpose! It was like how you sang! There was even a rhythm to it!” Oscar failed to contain himself after lying on the bed.

”Hurry up and sleep!”

”Hey! I'm talking to you!” Oscar rotated his wife's body and proceeded to slip his arms around her soft hair and smooth it back.

”Aren't you going to speak?” her lack of response was getting on the Prince's nerves. He then buried his head into Alanis' chest and bit off the buttons on her blouse like a wild boar. When he grabbed onto her pale breasts, his wife started moaning again.

”Alanis, I want you! Alanis!”

The man's voice seemed to linger in the air. With their bodies fueled by passion, there was no need for words. A single look was enough to heat up the room's atmosphere, igniting the passion of the entangled bodies on the bed.

Once the intense lovemaking had reached their climax, their sweat and piercing moans melded together. The Princess' body was entrapped by the man, her husband putting his entire body weight on her legs.

Exhausted, Alanis' panting soon turned into feminine whines. The man was about to withdraw from his beautiful and vulnerable wife when Alanis stopped him. She hugged his waist and said, ”Don't go! Leave it inside!” Oscar did not dare to move even an inch as he knew that it was easy for her to be impregnated like this.

”Did you do that on purpose?” Oscar still remembered his question with clarity.

The Princess chuckled, men were all the same; they would not recall the fits you threw, but they would certainly remember how you seduced them.

The young couple made peace and stayed with each other all day long. Even Sasha E. could see the sweetness in their proximity and intimateness. The Young Lady understood that men and women who were once intimate would so preciously treasure their sexual desires even if there was no longer love between the two and that only the loyal pairs of bodies and desires could explain the absurdities of a couple's cohesion.

”You don't love her!”

”I don't love her!”

”Repeat!”

”Enough, Sasha!”

”No! I want to hear! I want to hear the words personally from you!”

”Fine, I don't love her!”

”Ha… now it's better!”

Hehe! The Young Lady often played this game with her brother, that unwavering will would somehow give her the courage to walk alongside the couple until the very end.

The wisdom in the Eastern idioms was very noble and intricate, as they would say… birds of a feather flock together! It really seemed like it. The Prince's group could be split into smaller groups of three: first would naturally be the armored soldiers, who were quiet and would look at you as if they were sizing up wood to be fed into the fireplace, and the second would be the Prince's family members. They loved to sit around while sipping coffee and chit-chatting about the daily occurrences, and the third was the weirdest of them all! It consisted of the two women, Ashfin Kristen and Monia Amerson.

The Faran Princess and the female soldier were the oddballs of the group. In Paul's words, the two were slightly psychologically imbalanced.

Due to her insisting that someone was aiming for her life, Ashfin Kristen had not been outdoors for a month and had requested for matters involving her to be discussed or conducted in the carriage. As for Monia Amerson, the woman wrote His Highness letters almost every single day. Make no mistake, she had zero knowledge of love letters. What she was writing were formal requests to the Supreme Commander for her reassignment. She wrote at least twenty of those until the Princes appointed her to get onto the Faran Princess' carriage.

If Monia were to ask a word, she would discover that High Imperial Highness Prince had been leaving all the letters unread.

It was no surprise that the female soldier would feel overwhelmed as it was her first experience sitting with the royal princess in such proximity. Monia knew that she was a woman but was unaware of the other's gender. When it turned out that both of them were of the same gender, how was it possible for the difference between them to be so huge?!

Princess Ashfin had silky smooth skin and her features young and polished, with no wrinkles or any imperfections whatsoever!

Monia had been admiring the Faran princess the whole time. The female soldier turned to look at her hands which were littered with scars and wounds. Once again, she looked back at the princess who was holding an exquisite folding fan from West Percy. The Princess' elegance further instilled seeds of inferiority in the female soldier.

Ashfin's skincare items were kept in a delicate box of the size of a hand warmer, which was made with fine walnut wood and carved with the designer's signature. Monia had initially suspected the contents to be weapons when they were actually perfumes and skin care lotions.

”This is made from Armons shiitakes, it can transform your body's smell to a pleasing fragrance…. Here we have the rose essence of Anna, it's originally meant for facial application but I apply it onto my hands as my skin is more sensitive … This is the rarest! 80 Golden Ti per gram! The purest whale oil of the North Sea! Do you know anything about the North Sea's sperm whale?”

Bewildered, Monia stared straight and shook her head.

Ashfin shrugged nonchalantly but did not hold any contempt for the ignorant lady.

”Sperm whale! The most feared and vicious ocean killer! Rumor has it that the fishermen witnessed a sperm whale fighting with a shark! Its glands are capable of secreting a very special substance and from the substance, people were able to refine an oil ---- ambergris!”

”So this is ambergris?” Monia stared in astonishment. Regardless of how ignorant she may be, she would definitely know of Westland's rarest and most luxurious substance.

”Oh! You can't apply it onto your face!” Ashfin stopped Monia in time.

The Princess picked up the bottle cap and pointed at the golden liquid inside, ”What the people love are the ambergris' rarity and preciousness! Most don't know that it smells bad due to overwhelming fragrance! Do you know how my mother uses it?”

Monia shook her head again; how would she know, when she had never even applied a piece of cucumber to her face?

Princess Ashfin smoothly poured a portion of one gram and gently applied the eighty Golden Ti liquid onto the female soldier's eyes.

”Got it? The most effective usage of the North Sea's whale oil lies in relaxing the muscles around your eyes as well as eliminating dark eye circles and preventing wrinkling! Fools in the world still believe that it's a perfume when it's the best eye care product! Hahahahaha!”

Monia stared at the beaming Princess in admiration.

Next, the generous Princess applied each of the luxurious items onto the female soldier once, these were joys shared only among women. Monia had never experienced any burning curiosity until then, and she humbly sought guidance from the noble Faran madame regarding each item's utility.

When former Lieutenant of the Guards stepped out of the carriage with her new look, everyone was dumbfounded! Especially Paul! The King of Assassins was sizing up Monia with a blank look. Although he commented that it was pure insanity, Monia was still delighted by the man's stunned looks.

As safety measures, Princess Ashfin invited the female soldier to her bedroom for them to sleep in the same bed. Monia was unfamiliar with the foreign warmth beside her, but very soon her awkwardness vanished. Ashfin was not as quiet as she appeared to be and her words never stopped. To repay her kindness, Monia also tried her best to come up with conversation topics and was introducing ways to kill most of the time. To her surprise, Ashfin showed great interest in the topic. Within one night, the Princess transformed the army's combat machine into her close companion.

”That is why we can't use logic to reason with women!” Discount Sukhoi's tone was similar to that of an experienced professor when he commented.

”I won't ever divert my energy to women!” those were the Discout's final words but the people who knew him took him as a joke. As the Department Head of the Military Intelligence Bureau Messier once said, 'To train a stupid dog is not a difficult task but to ask General Tove Van Sukhoi to stop seeing women … it's slightly harder than conquering the peak of Alps!”

But to constantly repeat Messier's words would be a little unfair to the Brigadier General of the artillery soldiers. Discount Sukhoi was the first artillery commander in the Guards' history and was piled with unending tasks every single day.

Early in the morning, Torry first tried to get himself free of the two women who occupied his bed. To wriggle your way out of four legs and two pairs of breasts was not an easy feat, but not for the Brigadier General of the artillery soldiers. He did not wake the women and just got off his bed in satisfaction and proceeded to wash off the ”battle signs” with a cold shower. However, those red hickeys could not be washed away and Torry could do nothing more than to pull his collar high.

Artillery soldiers were a totally new branch. Due to their exceptional performance in the battle of Sajio Mountain, the Imperial military placed great emphasis and attention on the branch as if it was raising a newborn.

Torry's job scopes were not that different from the other officers' either. He was required to monitor his division's operations, be cautious of the relationship between hierarchies, attend to his men's morale and condition and organize daily drills or filling up the cannon bases.

Drills were conducted in the evening under normal circumstances when the Prince's troops would be done for the day. Torry would then scout around the base camp for an open space and adjust for his troops, which consisted of merely six cannon trucks, to test several cannon launches.

The stories of High Imperial Highness Prince O'Neil Andrew Morisette, documented in a book called the ”Sajio Mountain Battle Recordings”, had spread to all cities and towns of the Empire. The civilians and soldiers both adored and respected the heroes of the battle. If it was not for the assistance of the local troops, the Prince's base camp would have probably been flooded by curious people.

The drills in Torry's artillery branch were like this; the Brigadier General would choose the location with the least people, but requests from colleagues could not be rejected. Therefore, there would always be a crowd of military officers spectating all around the drill site. While the cannons fired may not appear as grand or fearful as in the battlefields, the officers still felt nervous whenever the artillery soldiers gave the signal to prepare to fire.

The military told us that this thing could kill a thousand-man troop in two minutes! This was no warfare weaponry! This was more like a slaughtering machine!

Unbothered by the men's snickers, Brigadier General Luke Citel and his five Commanders thought that they were more fitting to be the so-called slaughtering machines than the cannons due to their rich experience as professional soldiers. Long before Discount Sukhoi's artillery soldiers joined the Southern Special Combat Brigade, they had considered the possibilities of mixed combat. Although the terrains in the South posed great limitations towards the artillery soldiers' mobility, they could bring surprises to the battlefield as long as the ground troops had cleared the road beforehand or had found a suitable base in the mountains.

When the troop journeyed past the rural towns while bearing the proud flag of the Golden Lion of Morisette, the frightened civilians were asking, ”Where are these monsters coming from?”

”Are they from Deiss?”

The Prince's eyes widened, he hated the question and ordered the knights to hang the fellow on a tree and to give him a lashing.

The troops of the Military Intelligence Bureau's First Special Combat Brigade indeed had the appearances of monsters, they had no organized formations and were just strolling casually on the spacious road. Some knights walked the bottom path, some traversed through the woods while the rest hung around in the farms. But do not be deceived by the scenes before you and believe that they were simply fooling around! Surrounding High Imperial Highness Prince and the Her Highness Princess's carriages, the scattered knights had in fact fallen into a formation of solid defense.

These knights were all equipped with different gear and it was as clear as day to everyone that they did not have a uniform distribution of battle prowess. The variety of gears encompassed bows as tall as a person, shotguns as long as two individuals, hammers as thick as sunflowers … among the soldiers there were those who could shoot down soaring eagles with a wave of an arm, those who were capable of capturing fresh fish upon diving, those who caught tigers and wolves alive, and those who fought against bears and dogs with their bare fists …

”But wait! Do you think this is a circus? Telling everyone that my men can deliver fatal blows to anyone will do!” Luke Citel corrected at the end.

The scorching hot sun brought much trouble to the Prince and his men. Although it was still sunny when they had first departed from Dulin, there was no end to the rainstorm in Damorel Province. His Highness Prince O'Neil had initially planned to visit the former Damorga Prison. Unfortunately, his plan could only be saved for another date as they were behind schedule.

Due to the constant struggles with Damorel's downpour, the troops were starting to get exhausted, but they had to pick themselves up as it was still a long way to the South.

Upon reaching the Phishella Province, the Guard's Third Region Commander welcomed the Prince and his fellow troops with open arms. The Lieutenant General resupplied the Marshall's team with generous portions of high-quality horse food and snacks. They were still busy eating the eggs from Phishella even when they had reached the crossroads of Yang!

However, it was impossible for those eggs to satisfy the knights' appetites. Whenever they came to the woods, all men would hunt for food under the lead of His Imperial Highness Prince. Feigning their excuse of attempting to capture wild hares or foxes for the Imperial Princess and ladies, the men wanted nothing more than additional ingredients for their dinner.

Among the team members, Le Fou was the most passionate about hunting. The seven-year-old male clouded leopard had given Alanis headaches countless times. Bearing similar genes to the huge predatory beasts, Le Fou's teeth and claws made it an infamous destructor in the palace.

As a grown male, it was natural for Le Fou to mark the Princess' bedroom and its compound as its territory, peeing around the area for its strong male scent to linger. To the Princess, all she could smell was the disgusting stench! So, the enraged Alanis had ordered the Imperial doctor to perform a ligation surgery on her pet. Although Le Fou was unaware of the details, it did get rid of its bad competitive habits, ultimately transforming itself into a tame bobcat.

Nevertheless, there were limits to how obedient it could be as it was a leopard by nature! As a result, Le Fou could not ignore the creatures it met in the deep woods. It tended to disappear halfway only to barge into the knight's camp base another day.

Just as Oscar had predicted, little Le Fou presented its preys before its ”mother”. Of course, Alanis ended up screaming and shouting! Le Fou was not a fool either. After a few attempts, it realized that its behaviors were not received well by Alanis and thus changed its target.

Oscar was a man, a soldier! He was really fond of Le Fou. He thought that having the leopard by his side was a good thing as Le Fou could warn the troops of any changes in their surroundings. For the people it knew, the pet leopard would lower its alertness and acted as if nothing happened; as for individuals it was meeting for the first time, its muscles would tighten in preparation for leaping onto potential enemies.

Oscar would always keep a piece of chocolate candy in his pocket as Le Fou loved it. Whenever it returned to the base camp with prey, the Prince would throw the candy to him, and this satisfied the leopard a lot. During such times, you could extend your hand to pat Le Fou's head and caress the patterns on its back. But remember! Don't ever touch its abdomen and throat unless it was being friendly with you while lying on the ground.

Huge beasts would always have their weaknesses and they would never allow any stranger to come into contact with their most vulnerable spots.

The Military Intelligence Bureau Special Combat First Brigade was also an exceptionally vicious beast! The knights were just like killer animals. It did not matter if they were advancing or setting up camps, they would guard their stations all the time. Their heads were wrapped in black and their features were covered with cloths, leaving only their eyes visible. Whenever these eyes of various colors shone or shrank in unison, it signified that someone's luck was up!

”Marshall! We've caught him!” said 'Fire Eyes' Ash while ordering his subordinates to throw their captive onto the ground.

”He had been tracing our team since a week ago, all the way to Yang!” the Scout Leader added on.

”Who are you?” Oscar sized up the spy with caution. He trusted his judgment that the fellow was definitely a spy.

”Pft!”