Chapter 596: Friends and Enemies

"Thanks for inviting us out again today, Eris," Zara smiled genuinely at the younger girl.

A few months ago, if you had told Zara she would one day be running around one of the major cities of the Rockwell Kingdom together with a girl from the Balfour Family, searching for a lost pet, she would have scoffed at the mere idea.

Yet, here she was.

What’s more, her little brother Landon, was also with them.

A genuine prince of the Darr Kingdom, son of the Crown Princess no-less, helping a group of orphans from the Rockwell Kingdom chase after a rather feisty cat that had escaped from its owner. The situation was so ridiculous, the only thing Zara could do about it was laugh.

The fact that the cat actually managed to outwit them several times and evade capture for several hours was also quite impressive, considering the amount of people hunting it.

Clearly, this was not the first time this cat had escape, seeking freedom.

Why were Zara and Landon volunteering at the Rising Phoenix Guild?

Simple, for Landon’s rehabilitation.

During the incident in Sabre Point, the prince had suffered extensive injuries, requiring more than a month of bedrest and dedicated care from a Spirit Doctor.

Landon’s left arm was particularly troublesome to heal, as after using the High-Rank Grade 1 Impact Gem, several of his arm bones had been broken in multiple places.

In order to treat such an injury, one of the few true Spirit Doctors in the Rockwell Kingdom was called in by Celestina and had spent a full week using his own Spirit Qi to carefully re-align the broken bones inside Landon’s arm.

What could be set, was set, what had to be ’removed’ was removed, and then special tonics refined by Alchemists were used to rapidly promote healing.

It was a long, delicate, and at times excruciatingly painful process, but since Landon’s arm had only been mangled, and not completely lost like Eris’, it had eventually been healed, though it was hardly ’good as new’.

Landon would still need several months to a year of training and rehab before his arm was back to ’normal’, and even then, he would probably see a drop in his strength, but that was also how Eris inviting him and Zara to help out at the Rising Phoenix Guild came up.

Martial training was out of the question as that would put far too much stress on Landon’s arm and his only recently recovered body, but moving around, picking up trash, ladling soup, and chasing after lost pets was as good a rehabilitation program as any. It also had the added benefit of getting him out of the infirmary and giving him an excuse to spend all day together with Zara.

Lucas, Christina, and Eris were all well aware of the prince’s one-sided crush, so they had conspired to ’help’ him.

They weren’t trying to have fun at his expense, laughing at his embarrassing and awkward attempts to gain Zara’s attention while she remained blissfully unaware of his true feelings.

Honestly!

Alright, maybe there was some teeny, tiny, little bit of truth to them wanting to entertain themselves, but Landon didn’t object, and Zara certainly didn’t seem to mind, so what was the harm?

In fact, there were even a few subtle hints that Zara wasn’t ’completely’ ignorant of what was going on, but rather that she was just feigning so.

Only time would tell.

That said, after about 10 days helping out at the Rising Phoenix Guild, Landon’s arm had now recovered to the point where ordinary daily activities weren’t a problem for him anymore.

His body had also mostly healed from its injuries.

That meant the time for him and Zara to leave was fast approaching. They had already spent far more time in the Rockwell Kingdom than they had originally intended to, so it was only natural for them to be feeling the need to return home.

Understanding that a time of parting was fast approaching, Eris couldn’t help sighing a little as she shook her head, "I had fun today as well. I’ll miss you two when you’re gone."

"We... we’ll miss you too, Eris," Zara muttered sadly.

As for Landon, he just pursed his lips and lowered his head, feeling somewhat sour in his heart.

If he was being completely honest, the days he had spent in Misty City, chatting with Lucas, verbally sparring with Christina, and running around with Eris, had been some of the most fun in his life.

Zara felt a similar sense of contentment in this foreign city, far more so than she could ever have anticipated possible.

And that was what made things so complicated.

For all intents and purposes, Lucas, Eris, and Christina were their enemies, dangerous ones that represented an enormous potential threat to both them and their country. Yet, over the past month or so, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that this trio had also become close friends of theirs, as had a number of other youths from around Misty City.

Landon and Zara wanted to just relax and enjoy their time here, but because of the relationship between the Darr and Rockwell Kingdoms, even something as outwardly innocuous as helping out at Eris’ guild had a secondary, or even tertiary purpose.

Sure, the main reason Landon was volunteering at the Rising Phoenix Guild was to exercise his body, but he was also using his time there to analyse how this new organization operated and what kind of role it played in supporting Misty City.

Eris’ guild was also filled with a large number of powerful masters, so just being there allowed Landon and Zara to get some idea of Misty City’s overall strength.

Even if they weren’t doing this kind of intelligence gathering consciously, the country and positions they had been born into made it impossible for them to not pay attention to such things.

Needless to say, it was complicated, especially since they were both too young to have really experienced much of the world.

The idea that you could be both enemies and friends with a person made little sense to Landon and Zara, even though that exact situation was actually far more common than they realized.

It was with a slightly morose atmosphere surrounding the trio that they arrived back at Disciples House, where Eris lived and where Zara and Landon were temporarily boarding.

There were other guest houses in the Balfour Manor, of course, but since the Darr Kingdom prince and his ’escort’ had already made friends with Lucas, Eris, and Christina, it just made more sense for them to room here.

Disciples House also had the best facilities of any residence other than the main residence where Celestina lived, so it wasn’t like it was unfit for a foreign royal guest.

Upon entering the residence, one of the maids spotted Eris and quickly informed her that her cousin and paternal grandparents had arrived earlier today, which brought a smile back to the girl’s face.

She may have been too young to remember them, but Eris had always enjoyed hearing stories about her Grandpa Edward and Grandma Amalia from her parents. She had also read all the letters they had ever sent to Redwood Town and had even written back several times, asking how they were or thanking them for gifts they had sent.

The maid also told Eris that, as was quickly becoming a tradition, a grand dinner was being put together by the kitchen with invites to close family and friends having already been sent out to the rest of the Manor.

"We’ll let you go meet with your grandparents, then," Zara and Landon excused themselves, heading to the showers to wash up before dinner.

The two of them were, naturally, invited to tonight’s banquet, and it would be rude for them to show up all sweaty and dusty from crawling through alleyways and over rooftops trying to catch that damned cat.

Eris also felt she should probably have a shower and get changed into some clean clothes, but she decided it would best for her to go say hello first, so she waved to Zara and Landon before making her way down the hallways of the manor towards the backroom the maid had said her mother and grandparents were waiting in.