After leaving the Lost Fortress of Mendol—with the most valuable items in their hands, of course, including the dungeon’s core—Marcus, Stella, and Alice made their way to the nearest city, where a team of volunteers from the Order of Wellness lay in wait. Due to Stella’s condition, he had to leave her in Alice’s care while escorting the members of the Order of Wellness back to the dungeon to clear out the rest of the valuable loot.

  Since he still kept his mask on for anonymity, the volunteers barely managed to get any rapport with Marcus, and neither did he try to befriend anyone. For a few days, he just watched over them working, making sure that no one would be in danger as they extracted the loot from the dead monsters, alongside the various artifacts and treasures dotted in the many rooms and halls of the Lost Fortress.

  By the fourth day, Marcus finally managed to get the all clear report from the leader of the Order of Wellness’s team, and so, he made his way back to Kalthafen quickly. Night, the wyvern assigned to him, naturally stayed with him for the duration of the work. He therefore, for the first time, flew for the first time on his own.

  It was already evening. The wind was cold, and there was no one to talk to. All Marcus could do was keep himself steady on top of his wyvern, making sure that he didn’t make any moves that would startle the creature. He looked down at the twinkling lights of the towns and cities he was passing by below.

  Briefly, to check if he was on course, he produced a map from his coat’s pocket with one hand. That was when his ears picked something up. There was another group of wyverns seemingly rushing straight at him. Worryingly, they were faster and higher than him. He didn’t really know how to fight against other wyvern riders using a wyvern yet, but even he knew that meant he was in trouble if a fight broke out.

  Steeling himself, he activated [Mass Surveillance], checking who they were. As the two wyverns descended and began slowing down, Marcus felt a sigh of relief as he realized who they were.

  “Sir M!” shouted one of the riders, waving at him as he flew to Marcus’s right side. “It’s Fritz. Didn’t think I’d catch you out here on patrol!”

  “Bwahahaha! Why are you flying your wyvern like an absolute virgin?!” A cocky laughter came from his left side. It was Heinrich, and he was flying his wyvern with such finesse that he just swooped down near Marcus before doing a mid-air brake that seemed…impossible?

  “Sorry, I’m not used to riding these wyverns yet,” Marcus said apologetically, shaking his head. He didn’t expect to see these wyvern knights around here, especially in the middle of the night. He turned to Fritz. “I seriously doubt that you two are supposed to be patrolling the interior at night.”

  “Good sir, have you not considered that we have other things to patrol for other than Ridian forces?” Fritz gently held the reins of his white wyvern as he looked up at the moon. “There are bandits, monsters, and other threats to public safety too.”

  Marcus snickered. “Knights being used for public safety. Don’t make me laugh. You’re on a mission."

  “Unfortunately, yes,” Fritz nodded with an awkward smile. “A mission involving you.”

  “Ah, I see.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Hmm…who sent you then?”

  Marcus had an inkling as to who could possibly order these two into a mission involving him. Most likely, it was the king himself, or any other people high up top who didn’t like the fact that the princess was getting too close with him, or those who deemed him a security threat. Lucky it was these two.

  Marcus might have to beat other wyvern knights if he caught them being all suspicious or if they tried to obstruct him from his goal, which was to return to the palace and Stella’s side quickly. He was quite drained after days of work without seeing her after all. No bastard in this world was going to stand between him and his desire to talk again to Stella with a good cup of coffee and a decent dinner.

  “It might surprise you, but,” Fritz smiled. “It’s the princess herself.”

  “She sent wyvern knights after me?”

  “Yes. Filed a request with our commanding officer this morning. Told us to keep watch because she fears that the Death God Cult will interfere or something. Also, we’re protecting members of the Order of Wellness out of sight.”

  Marcus smiled. He even laughed. “I see. I seriously doubt there’s any reason for her to be concerned about me though. I can do my job just fine.”

  “Without a doubt, I believe that. Most likely, she does too.” Fritz flew closer to Marcus. “But, I say, the main reason he probably sent us is to make sure that you’ll get to Kalthafen without incident. Too many uppity officials being given orders by other factions in the royal family, you see.”

  “Ah…”

  Marcus nodded. “Yeah, I expected that much.”

  “With wyvern knights by your side, the airspace might as well be wide open for you,” Heinrich explained with a grin on his face. “It will take an order from the king himself if someone tries to obstruct you.”

  “And someone will obstruct you,” Fritz said, frowning. “Word from the ground is, a lot of people aren’t taking the fact that the king is planning to turn some masked man into a personal knight of the [Saint] herself.”

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  “Quite frankly, if I didn’t know you, even I would oppose it on principle,” Heinrich said. “Just…doesn’t seem to sit right to me, you know? Stella has been becoming more and more popular to the people. Even if nobles hate her for that, for us, how can we let someone no one even knows guard her?”

  “...I guess keeping my anonymity really is becoming a prime headache, huh?” Marcus asked. “I’ll…keep this in mind.”

  “Consider this a head up from your friends in the Wyvern Knight Corps,” Fritz declared. “I’m sure you two will figure out something that works eventually.”

  “Right, of course we will. Thanks.”

  It sure is nice to have alternate sources of intel, heh.

  With Fritz and Heinrich as his escorts, Marcus had no problem entering Kalthafen. There were actually multiple air patrols constantly on guard around the royal capital. It made sense. Someone sneaking in from the skies could be a problem. Said patrols did intercept them, which was a bit of a surprise considering how bad visibility was in the royal capital.

  But as Fritz said earlier, it seemed that the local wyvern riders from the Kalthafen Garrison were tipped off earlier that Marcus was going to return, and they wanted to piss on him with the only means available to them—which was bureaucracy and red tape. Fritz and Heinrich dealt with them, and Marcus was easily given permission to enter, even when he didn’t present any papers for identification.

  The two wyvern knights eventually separated themselves from him, and Marcus landed at the flat grounds near the royal palace’s stables. As he did so, he noticed two figures rushing toward him from below. It was Stella and Marie.

  “You’re back!” Stella shouted happily, as Marcus dismounted from Night. The wyvern growled slowly on the ground as it shook its head before looking back at the stables. A group of stablemen was already rushing toward Night, and Marie gave them orders to give the wyvern a rest.

  Marcus, on the other hand, fixed his robes before looking back at Stella. “Mission complete.”

  “I see…” Stella smiled, looking up at him. “You look tired. Say, do you have any preferences for dinner?”

  “Anything will do,” Marcus said as he walked with Stella and Marie back to the palace. “I bet Marie here or the palace chefs already cooked something anyway. It’s pretty late. The leftovers should be fine.”

  “On the contrary, I haven’t cooked yet, and Lady Stella didn’t eat the food prepared by the palace kitchen this evening,” Marie said, smiling as she gently shook her head. “She insisted on waiting for you before having dinner.”

  “It’s because if you’re cooking for us this time, you have to do it at one go,” Stella said. “It would be too much extra work if you have to do it twice.”

  “You worry too much. That’s just my job from time to time. I don’t even cook that much, except for special occasions.”

  “Special occasion?” Marcus raised an eyebrow, bewildered.

  “We’re going to celebrate!” Stella said, pumping a fist as they climbed the stairs. “I have avoided bankruptcy. And for that, I have to treat myself, and you, of course!”

  “...Oh. You’ve sold the most valuable loot already?”

  At that, Stella nodded proudly.

  “Yep. I had many connections who easily became buyers. There’s still a lot of unsold loot, but we already have enough to pay off the debt that Meriel’s Haven and the Order of Wellness racked up.”

  Marcus laughed. “Is that so? Heh, I’m happy for you then.”

  “It’s all thanks to you,” Marie said. “Quite frankly, Miss Phoebe and I were a bit displeased with the idea of having Stella go down to a dark and dirty dungeon…”

  “Err, well…my solution to everything in life is to just kill. Sorry.”

  “But, it all worked out well in the end,” Marie said, before smiling sweetly at Marcus. “Though…I should say that there’s also the matter of Stella returning here out of mana and with an injured gate.”

  “Ah, yeah…” Marcus scratched the back of his head awkwardly, trying to hide himself beside Stella to avoid the murderous gaze from the older maid. “Siris already chastised me about that. Look, I didn’t expect it.”

  “And I told you that it’s absolutely not his fault,” Stella insisted to Marie. “Besides, that stone dragon thing gave me a lot of XP. I wouldn’t be at the level I am at right now without doing that.”

  “That may be so, but injuring your gate is extremely dangerous.” Marie lazily waved her index finger as if lecturing Stella. “You do know that, don’t you? Worst of all, a shattered gate is not easily fixed by healing magic, not even a [Saint’s] magic.”

  “I know, I know…” Stella hung her head low. “It’ll never happen again, I swear.”

  “I definitely should have warned you that it was dead at the fifteen-second mark,” Marcus said. “Sorry.”

  They soon finally reached Stella’s chamber.

  “Why didn’t you warn her then?” Marie asked.

  “I…I was watching her magic in awe.”

  Marcus cringed at that. Indeed, during the fight, since he barely encountered any trouble—even if it did look like that for both Stella and Marie—he was mostly just having fun at killing the draconic earth elemental. Seeing [Divine Judgement], Stella’s extremely powerful spell involving holy magic, was a sight to behold.

  He had witnessed it firsthand in Eisenfeld, and there, his views about magecraft being awesome were affirmed further. He could admit to himself that he really did have a lot of childish views about magecraft, mostly as a holdover from his younger days. So, when he saw Stella blasting the heavens out of that dragon, he forgot to give her the signal that it was dead.

  I really should fix my behavior.

  Stella, however, just chuckled. “Don’t worry about it, Marcus. I should have known when the dragon was dead. I think I overdid it because I was trying to be thorough.”

  “I did notice it though,” Marcus said. “I have superior [Perception] stats. I apologize for being so unprofessional.”

  “I said it’s fine. Besides, the damage to my gate was minor. I really just had to rest for a few hours.”

  Marcus let out a sigh of relief. “I thought it was worse.”

  “She’s one tough woman,” Marie said. “But that’s not an excuse for your ungentlemanly behavior, Sir Marcus.”

  “I get it, I get it…”

  “Marie, you really shouldn’t chastise him too much,” Stella pouted at her maid. “We’re supposed to have a celebration tonight. He worked hard for me, after all.”

  “Right, right. Just saying. I’ll go to the kitchen then. Phoebe must be sick of waiting for me.”