The scorching sun was beginning to rise on the horizon, a new day had risen yet Leona was still half asleep near the docks. She was watching the crewmembers carry a variety of different boxes filled with merchandise, clothing, food, and so many different kinds of things that made her have a slight headache from thinking how they would find buyers for so much volume.

‘I couldn’t get a wink of sleep…’

She was sitting by a table that oversaw the docks with a cup of water and a pastry filled with berry jam on a plate served by a silver short haired young woman. Krieg was also sharing her table but he only got himself a cup of water that was just served by the same woman.

“Will that be all?”

Her golden eyes locked with Krieg’s, her voice was pleasant to the ears as Leona instinctively smiled.

“Yes, thank you.” He replied. “We’ll be departing soon, do you have anything that we can take for a long voyage?”

“Ah yes, as a matter of fact we do. Does the young lady like grapes?”

“Grapes?” Leona’s attention shifted from her filled pastry to the waitress’ eyes. “Do you have them here?”

“Yes, well… maybe not the kind of grape Miss would be expecting. A moment if you please.”

She went inside the store and quickly came out carrying a rather sizable glass jar filled with seemingly withered fruits. “Dried grapes! Or as the locals call it, raisins! Excellent for travel since they last a very long time, just don’t let water near it and it should last until you reach your destination.”

“Huh… now this is new.” The spark of curiosity shook off some of her sleep. “Were you the one who made this?”

“Well, I didn’t invent it, but I learned how to make it in Nara.”

‘This can help a bit with the scurvy problem Charlotte mentioned.’

Leona thought before giving the waitress a smile.

“I’ll take one then.”

“We have smaller jars if you wish-”

“No, I want this one. How much is it?”

“Ah, this one is a silver.”

Leona instinctively raised an eyebrow. It was rather cheap for a jar that big, considering grapes were also fruits not easy to come by, especially somewhere so far away from the fertile lands near Akrapocalis and Arcadia.

“Mind if I ask where do you get the grapes from?”

She handed the silver coin to her while Krieg held the jar.

“Ah, these come from Nara. The last shipment was two days ago and thankfully lady Charlotte prioritizes this shop since it’s affiliated with the orphanage despite not contributing to the city a lot.” The young woman looked at the sign of the shop that read ‘Little Heroes’ with a smile on her face. “If it wasn’t for her and master Murakano, me and the rest of the kids wouldn’t be here today.”

From the corner of her eye Leona noticed a kid running from behind her, he had curled black horns like her former personal maid, Adele. His short black hair, fine skin, simple yet sturdy looking clothing bereft of holes was a far cry of what Leona expected an orphan to look like.

“Big sis Lucina!” He threw himself into a tight hug against the waitress’ hips. “I made you a handkerchief!”

“Ah?! Luciel!” She looked at the kid who had a big smile on his face. “I told you not to come running behind me when I’m working.”

Leona chuckled.

“I don’t mind at all.” She then turned to the kid. “Are you her younger brother?”

“Yeah! Big sis takes care of all of us in the orphanage!” He pulled out a few handkerchiefs of different colors. “Here! Thank you for shopping with us!”

Leona chuckled a bit.

“Thank you for making these. Here, as payment for a good job.”

She handed the boy a silver coin and grabbed the green, red and blue handkerchiefs before pocketing them.

“Ah. There’s no need to pay us for these-”

As Lucina was about to protest, Leona simply raised her hand and looked at the both of them.

“These are well worth the money.” She then ruffled the boy’s hair as she stood up. “Take care of yourself and your sister.

“Mhm!”

Krieg then stood up and bowed slightly as a way to say thanks to the waitress, just in time as Cecile approached the two of them.

“Good morning, Miss Leona, Sir Krieg. Do you have any possessions that need storing?” She glanced briefly at Lucina who bowed towards her to which in response she shook her hand whilst touching the woman’s shoulder. “The captain is finishing some last minute paperwork before we can depart, in the meantime I was tasked to oversee any needs or questions that you may have.”

“Ah, I bought some dried grapes.” Leona gestured to the jar that Krieg held. “We don’t know exactly where to take these to.”

“Perhaps to your private quarters then-”

“I bought this for everyone, not just us.”

That made Cecile widen her eyes in surprise. Despite knowing that Leona was a noble, she wasn’t expecting that much kindness from someone that was so far away from home.

“Ah… in that case I’ll take it to the captain’s office then. She’ll be pleased with the surprise as well as the crew.” Cecile took the jar off Krieg’s hands and bowed to Leona. “Thank you again for this kind gesture, Miss Leona.”

“Think nothing of it.” She then turned to Lucina and Luciel. “Thank you two for your hospitality. As though I am far away from home I did feel very welcomed here.”

She finished her cup of water and was about to leave for the docks but the young woman raised her voice.

“Ah, Miss Leona, mind if I ask where you are from?”

She gave her a bittersweet smile as she answered.

“I’m from Arcadia.”

Phoebe who was finishing restocking her personal supplies of potions and poisons just joined the two of them by the staircase that led to the docks. Despite what happened the night before, Leona was composed and didn’t let any of her emotions show as the high elf approached her.

“I finished gathering the rest of the things I needed.” She said while pulling two red glass vials from her pouch. “Here. Keep these on your person, lest you are caught off-guard. I was trained only briefly in the arts of healing but don’t count too much on it.”

“Ah. Thank you.”

The moment Leona pocketed the vial inside the satchel on her belt she felt a strange sensation as if someone was watching her. Krieg noticed her gaze shift if only for a moment and asked.

“Is everything alright?”

“Y-yeah… I just felt something off, that’s all.”

The moment she turned around to look at the ship, she noticed a dark blue glint from beneath a person’s cloak right beside her.

“Found you-!”

Even before she could react, Phoebe pushed Leona away just as a flash of bright blue light pierced through the person’s inner part of the dark blue cloak and hit a nearby building before exiting the other side of it.

“What the?!”

“Hmph!”

Krieg rushed in front of Leona before swinging the longsword horizontally from its sheath in order to decapitate her assailant, but the attack was dodged as the person took flight with wind magic. At that point, bystanders began to run from panic caused by the sudden attack

“Hm…” The mage was flying just outside of melee range, seemingly analyzing the situation. “I intended to finish the job quickly and cleanly but you had to interfere didn’t you? Lil’ sis.”

As the hooded figure took the cloak off, it revealed a high elf of sharp ears, long black hair and piercing deep blue eyes. Her combat uniform was composed of a long sleeved black overcoat with thick golden details on the sleeves, padded shoulders and silver chains that held the upper part together, a diamond shaped metal breastplate that went down until her stomach where her black trousers began with the knee high leather boots tightly tied to keep from falling should she chose to fly.

“Kaeli…” Phoebe clenched her teeth in anger as her hand twitched close towards the longbow resting on her shoulder. “I’ll kill you where you stand.”

She chuckled in return.

“Worry not sister. With the new spells I learned I’ll make sure you’ll forget all of your worries so we can live together ever after.” She began to charge two different spells on both hands while she spoke. “But, well… I still have a princess to kill first.”

“It’s a fire and a wind spell.” Leona muttered beneath her breath as she prepared two spells of her own on each hand. “Northern winds hearken to me-”

“Soldiers! To arms!”

A familiar voice shouted from aboard the large sailing ship. Charlotte marched out to the pier with a firing squad armed with rifles.

“Tsk, noisy pests!” She aimed with her left hand at them which was charged with a fiery aura before shouting. “Crushing Fire!”

“-freeze those who oppose me, Ice Wall!”

Before the deadly fireball could hit them, a blast of ice erupted into a slight curve which served to soak the explosion and impact from the spell. At that moment Kaeli’s attention shifted to Leona as her right hand also pointed towards her.

“Winds of time, destroy mine enemy, Wind Bullet!”

The tactician released the second spell that erupted from the ground in front of her, covering Krieg as well from the spell that almost managed to punch through the ice wall despite being several centimeters wide.

‘Ngh! What is this power?!’

“I had enough of you! KAELI!”

Phoebe drew her longbow to its maximum length and released the arrow aimed at the mage's neck, but the arrow was easily deflected by a powerful gust of wind.

“Now, now- don’t be too hasty, we’ll have all the time in the world together, but for now I need you to stay quiet.”

She pointed her hand at Phoebe who instinctively jumped backwards but she wasn’t fast enough as ice erupted from the wooden pier, catching her prosthetic legs first and when she fell down it started to restrain her limbs.

“Argh!”

“-take aim!” A voice coming from Kaeli’s left side made her quickly prepare a water spell. “Fire!”

“Water Rampart!”

A burst of water erupted from her left hand, creating a convex body of water almost one and half meter wide which served to stop the bullets that became deformed from their own kinetic energy.

As the steam cleared near the ship, it revealed Charlotte, Cecile, Luka and Percival holding their rifles up between the broken shards of ice left from Leona’s spell.

“Haaargh!”

A male battle cry came from behind Leona, who instinctively turned with a wind spell half prepared to fight back, but the man that shared the same uniform as the other soldiers wasn’t charging at her and instead was running with a harpoon in hand before throwing it at Kaeli.

“Tsk!” She turned her body sideways and flew a bit to the left, making the harpoon fly off in the distance before landing in the water behind her. At the same time she raised her right arm and began to chant. “Fulgent lightning-”

Hearing the familiar chant made Leona quickly shift her attention back to Kaeli.

“Crushing Wind!”

The violent blast of wind wasn’t strong enough to cause any real damage but it was powerful to the point of disrupting Kaeli’s flight which made her spell fizzle out.

“Dammit. What the hell are the rest of you waiting for?! Kill her!”

Leona felt a tingling sensation in the base of her nape and the moment she turned around there were two cloaked mages one taller than the other further back pointing their hands with spells being charged.

‘I don’t have enough time-!’

She was attempting to cast another ice wall but they had their spells ready to fire. The taller left-most mage had both of his hands forward with sparks of lightning coming from his palms, that made Krieg prioritize him as he threw his longsword at full strength which impaled the man through his stomach before his lifeless body skid was tossed back by the sheer power.

"Spirits of thunder, grant me thy might-” However the younger one on the right managed to chant his spell and as he was about to finish, the soldier who had thrown the harpoon threw himself in front of Krieg and Leona. “-Lightning Bolt!"

The soldier took the brunt of the spell as an arc of purple lightning hit his body. His somewhat long hair tied in a bun became undone as the string that held it was burnt from the electricity.

‘Ah… someone died again for my sake.’

That was the first thought that came to her mind as her hands instinctively began to gather mana around them to cast an offensive spell. However, contrary to what she had just witnessed, the soldier that was hit began to laugh as his hands moved to each side of his belt covered by the military uniform.

“Hah! Now that made my blood pump!”

He pulled out two rather short handaxes with overly exaggerated thick blades that curved over the handle before he rushed the mage down with the tenacity of a wild beast.

“Huh?! What the-?! How are you still alive?!”

“It’ll take more than that to kill me! Hahahaha!”

One leap and he was in the magician’s face with one axe in the air ready to hack him down.

“Wai- Wait! Stop! AAAAAAAAAAAH!” Unbefitting of his status as a soldier, he started to slash the young man to shreds with each wild strike dishing out blood, flesh and bones in equal parts without restraint. “AAAAAAH! I’M SORRY! I’M SORRY! I’M-”

It was a painful sight which made Leona avert her eyes and focus again on Kaeli who decided to fly higher up while preparing two elements, one of which the tactician rarely saw used in combat.

‘Earth magic… does she intend to crush us?!’

“I won’t allow that to happen!” She shouted while raising her hands to the sky. “Crushing-”

“Piercing Stone!”

“-Wind!”

They roughly released their spells at the same time. Kaeli’s thin drill-like stone spears of around a meter and half were thrown off course by Leona’s violent wind spell which made said spears land around instead of skewing them. However despite her successful defense and disrupting her opponent’s flight, Kaeli had a confident smirk on her face that made Leona realize her opponent’s plan after noticing the second spell’s element.

“Fulgent lightning-”

‘She’s planning to electrocute us…!’

Looking around her, the stone spikes were just a minor distraction which also served as an insurance for the lightning spell to hit them. With only a few seconds to react, she attempted a high risk gamble by coalescing frigid air around the stone rods and releasing a large amount of mana in a single wave of frost which created a thick coat of frozen water from the ground all the way to the other stone spears.

“-smite my foes, Chain Lightning!”

Not even half a second later, Kaeli released the highly destructive lightning spell that arced in three different directions towards them, however thanks to Leona’s quick thinking, all three managed to zap the rods of stone and ice before thawing the frozen ground they were standing on. Part of said ice quickly evaporated from the spell’s high voltage, but the almost non-existent conductivity of frozen distilled water protected them from being electrocuted.

However it wasn’t without consequence, Leona fell with one knee on the ground panting heavily as the large amount of mana she had to use in such a short time had taken its toll on her body.

“Haaa… ah… dammit.”

“Fire!”

Charlotte’s voice came from somewhere behind her closely followed by the sounds of rifle fire. Leona raised her head to the sky and noticed how effortlessly Kaeli was stopping all the attempts to harm her with a water barrier.

‘How can she cast so many spells without running out of mana?!’