Otherworld Adventure

Matheus was invited to stay with the Clarences until he left tomorrow morning. When it was around dinner time, he finally remembered to ask Celestina about his belongings.

Celestina started pulling stuff out of thin air and Matheus recognized that she was pulling things out of a spatial storage ring. His sister, Fatima, had one and so did his little brother Cecil.

"Hey, Celes... if my stuff was inside your ring... so why did you—ah, never mind, I get it."

Celestina was about to explain but after seeing that Matheus had figured it out himself, she started blushing a little bit.

She just wanted to walk around the city with him while also giving the excuse of having to eventually come over to her house once they were finished with their little date. Matheus wasn't that stupid to not have realized it by now.

If Celestina was a bit more straightforward with her words, Matheus thought that they wouldn't have to go through all of that hassle to just announce that they liked each other.

"Doesn't that apply to me as well?" He mumbled after realizing if he had just manned up and said it himself then he would have either been accepted or rejected much earlier.

Of course, he was quite afraid to be rejected since he did like Celestina. It was a good thing that his affection went both ways and she also liked him back.

They were currently in the living room when Celestina began pulling out his stuff. There was his trusted glaive, his backpack full of rations and equipment, and also another large bag that was full of his other belongings.

He grabbed his backpack and pulled out a long cloth from it and began wrapping his glaive in it. After he finished doing that, he set it aside and began rummaging around his bag once again before pulling out a rectangular object that easily fit inside his palm.

When Celestina saw the object she couldn't help but ask, "A MID?"

"Oh, yeah, my brother gave this to me. It's a nifty little device—Woah, what the heck?"

"What's wrong?"

Matheus looked down at his MID and saw that there were plenty of missed calls coming from his family, especially his brother, Cecil.

Cecil had once more upgraded the MID and it now resembled more of Earth's modern-day smartphone instead of Alterna's MID. Since its basic functionality as a MID stayed, Cecil just added more add-ons that turned more similar to a phone.

It was pretty welcomed, since now the Earthlings finally had access to the very convenient object from their days back on Earth. All that was missing were the phone companies and software engineers that made all the awesome little perks that could be installed into it.

Of course, this still needed to be developed since the MID was much more different than the phone. Also, Cecil still needed to share all of his knowledge with the populace before anyone could even think about developing something for the MID.

Matheus remembered that the opening of the Silvaria Grand Library was still in its planning stages and his brother still needed some time to translate and transcribe all of his doc.u.mented materials into separate books so that they could be read by the populace.

'It would surely advance the livelihoods of everyone in the kingdom once Cecil shares his knowledge with everyone.'

As Celestina was curiously looking at the odd and more refined MID, it suddenly began ringing and at the same time, "I'm home~" Celestina walked into the house.

"Matty, Matty! It's ringing and vibrating!"

"Yeah, this means someone is calling me. Let me answer it, my brother's calling me again, I wonder what's up..."

"What do you mean by call?" Celestina curiously asked.

"How about I show you," Matheus responded with a grin before answering the call.

Celestina walked over when she heard their conversation, "What're you two talking about?"

It was then that she heard a voice coming from the small device being held by Matheus.

"Big bro, where are you? The whole family's worried since you didn't come back even after a month!"

"Oh, Cecil? Is that you?"

"Hm, well big bro, can you answer me? Where on Alterna are you? We received a report that you also went missing after and we already sent search parties to go and find you. We can't have the future king of Silvaria run away, now can we?"

Matheus could already picture the smug smile on his little brother's face and he silently cursed in his mind before answering, "This is because of you! I can't believe you just relinquished your right like that!"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, just hurry up and answer my question, big bro. Where are you?"

"...Tsk, I'm in Revertia Kingdom's capital city."

"W-what the heck?! What the hell are you doing over there?!"

"...It's a long story. I'll tell you all about it once I get home. I'll be making my way back tomorrow."

"...Big bro, that's gonna take like 3-4 months..."

"Well, that's just 3-4 months of adventuring for me, then."

"...Oh god, mother and father are going to kill me... since you're in the capital city, give me a few days to come and pick you up."

"What? Hell no! I'll get back by myself!"

"Tsk, don't be stubborn, big bro, mom and dad are going to have my head if they know that you're over there!"

"Gotta take one for the team, right, Lil bro?"

"Aw, please don't be like this! The announcement was supposed to be made the moment you come home, but if they find out that it might take 3-4 months before you get back, they'll just force me up there instead!"

"...That doesn't sound like a bad idea..."

"HEY!"

"Fine, fine... I'll still be leaving tomorrow. Just come to the border and find me."

"Alright, I'll get going now then. See you in a few days!"

"Sure..."

Matheus ended the call and shook his head in exasperation. His brother had been calling him nonstop for the past few days not because he was worried about him, but because his little brother was worried that their parents would force him on the throne if he didn't return soon.

"Matty, who was that?" Celestina immediately asked in curiosity.

"That was my little brother, Cecil," Matheus replied.

"How are you able to talk with each other like that? From the sound of things, he seems to be a long way away from here!"

"This MID was something my little brother made. He's the genius in our family and also the next Patriarch. I'm not sure how to explain why my MID can do this, but let's just say it's a special kind."

"Patriarch huh... I also heard something interesting, what's this about becoming the next king?" Celestina asked again with a questioning look in her narrowed eyes.

"Uhh...well...about that..."

"Hmmm..."

"I-I'll tell you, okay? I'll tell you..."

"Okay!"

"Hey, hey! Before you answer that, can you answer this first?" Cecilia immediately quipped up from the side.

"Woah, wh-when were you here, Cecilia?!"

"Oh, sis, you're back. How were things at the church?" Celestina asked.

"Same old, same old, only the usual stuff, but more importantly, who's voice was that?!" Cecilia asked once more.

"That was Matty's little brother, Cecil."

"Cecil? Hmmm... he sounded a little familiar, don't you think, Celes?"

"Familiar? No, this is the first time I've heard that voice..."

"He sounds so much like my hero! Can I meet him, Matheus? I want to check whether he was the one who saved me back then!"

"Uhh, sure... hmmm, I think you could have met... he was on a journey here after all before he suddenly turned back..."

"Really?! Then it might be him, after all!"

"..."

Matheus made a face when he saw the love-struck look on Cecilia's face. If the person Cecilia was always fantasizing about was indeed his brother, then he could only commend Cecil for being a first-rate womanizer. How the hell did that brother of his seduce a woman who was so far away from their home? Not only that, from the way Cecilia had been talking about it, Matheus deduced that the 'hero' in her story also only saved her in passing.

"I'll be leaving tomorrow, so if you want to come along, that's up to you. I'll be taking Celestina with me though."

"Fine with me, just make sure you take care of my big sis well, okay?"

"Definitely."

"Great! I think mother's finished cooking now, let's go and eat dinner!"

******

Early the next day, Matheus and Celestina had already finished their preparations and were getting ready to depart. They were using the same landwyrm mount that they had previously bought at the neutral city.

Celestina's parents came out to see her off. There was just a slight problem, however. The two had another passenger with them.

"Ceci...do you have to come?" Celestina asked in exasperation to which her sister cheerfully replied, "Yeah!"

"...Can't you see that you're causing a problem for us and the Church?"

"...What problem?"

Currently, there were priests and priestesses as well as the kingdom's soldiers currently surrounding the landwyrm that Matheus and Celestina were on.

It wasn't that they weren't going to let them through, but the priests and priestesses were trying their all to persuade Cecilia from going while the soldiers were there just in case they couldn't persuade her and had to tag along on the journey.

"High Priestess Cecilia, please don't be so stubborn. We've had some problems with demon sightings already ever since the Malistrom Ocean began calming down and you were already attacked once before! Please just stay here, where it's safe!" The old man from yesterday greatly urged.

If Matheus wasn't mistaken, this person was called Cardinal Hope. The cardinal was urgently advising Cecilia from going with Matheus and Celestina. He even tried to persuade Celestina and Matheus from leaving. It was too bad that Matheus had to leave no matter what.

He didn't want to cause too many problems back at home. Although, he didn't mind throwing all of the problems onto Cecil, but that wouldn't be 'elder brotherly' of him, now would it.

The Commander from yesterday as well as Oscar stepped forward and offered to protect her during the entire journey. Their units would make sure that nothing would befall of the high priestess.

Matheus was a little overwhelmed at Cecilia's importance to everyone in the kingdom. He didn't know what kind of status a high priestess held, but from the looks of things, it was a pretty prestigious one.

The church ran the kingdom so there were no kings or queens or any nobility for that matter. However, the way Cecilia was treated was pretty much as how a queen or princess was treated.

'I guess the high-ranked members of the church are treated as nobility... although this one seems to be a little willful and treated more carefully than the rest,' Matheus thought as he eyed Cecilia.

Just from the name, old man Hope was someone of high social status since he was a cardinal and all, but even then, he treated Cecilia as if she were his ancestor or something.

Matheus grew a bit tired from the yapping and talking so he leaned into Celestina's ear and said, "Celes, can we go now? It'll take us a few days to get to the border and by then, my brother might already be waiting for us. I don't want him to grow impatient and search for us in the kingdom."

"O-Okay, one second, Matty."

Celestina walked over to Cecilia and Cardinal Hope before exchanging a few words with them. After a few minutes, she came back to Matheus and quickly said that they could go already. Matheus quickly mounted the landwyrm and pulled Celestina up.

He was just about to urge the landwyrm, Suo, to move, but suddenly, Cecilia floated onto the saddle and sat herself down before urgently saying, "Matheus, go, go now!"

"Huh?"

"Oh, you slowpoke!" Cecilia turned around and fired a Light Bolt at Suo, the landwyrm's tail.

"GROOARRR!!!"

Suo widened his eyes in shock and quickly darted forward.

"W-Woah!"

"Wahahaha~ that old geezer can't stop me!!!"

"Are you kidding me?! Okay, we're turning around—" Before Matheus could continue, Celestina tugged on his sleeve and said, "It's okay, Matty."

"...You were in on it too, weren't you?"

Celestina only shrugged and gave him a small smile. Matheus shook his head and just went with it. He urged the landwyrm to rush further and faster away from the city. From behind, he could distinctly make out the old cardinal yelling out for them to stop.