That wasn't a piece of good news. His travel time just extended. "Would it be easier if we fly?" Ren asked.
"I advise against it. Flying will attract a lot of attention, and it's the least that we want right now."
If the Princess was against the idea, then that was the end of it.
Great.
"If we ride on Tiki's back, it will cut our journey short." Elena consoled when he noticed Ren's mouth clamped tight.
But Ren wouldn't be able to forage from foraging spots. He weighed his options here and decided that he would rather stick to his schedule. After all, once the Fey Realm was opened in the future, he could forage to his heart's content.
Right now, he was pressed for time.
Ren only had like a week of real-time allotted in this journey. That was only twenty-eight days of in-game time, and he had a lot of things to do. "We have to get going then."
"This first part of the map is the easiest. This area is called Everwood," the Princess said when they started moving.
Ren sat a meter distance behind Elena as she held the reigns of Tiki. He had to strap both legs on each side of the lizard and hold tight on the leader straps so he wouldn't fall off from the sudden quick movement of the Riding Lizard.
"Everwood? You mean the Feywild?" Ren asked when he found his balance and could breathe easily again.
Elena briefly glanced over her shoulder. "The Feywild is called many things by its inhabitants: the Bright, the Truelands, the Everwood, and so on. Only mortal outsiders, and Feys, who had spent a great deal of time in the mortal worlds, called it the Feywild. Most fey look at folk who use the word like backward country bumpiness. So be warned in using that word."
"Noted." Ren was gladder now that he had agreed for the Princess to accompany him on this journey.
"How come you know so much about the Fey? Did you come here before?"
Elena shook her head. "No. It's actually prohibited, especially for high-ranking nobles, to go to the Fey Realm without prior notice. In my case, unless I became the Queen of the Elves or summoned to the lands of the Fey, I couldn't step inside this place. My mother ever stepped into this lands like five times in her whole life."
"You're in trouble then."
To that, the Princess only laughed. "I'm always in trouble. What's new?"
"So, how do you know so much about the Fey Realm?"
"As a Princess, we were required to study everything, know every land and place, culture and lore."
"Sounds . . . stiffly boring."
The Princess agreed. "We have long lives to make up for those boring lessons. And I find reading more enjoyable than those nobles coming to visit me every day. It was a good excuse to ditch them too." She giggled.
As they glided on the earth, they came upon multiple beasts and each with its own dangers.
These creatures have forms that were strange and twisted, ideally suited to one foul purpose, hunting sentient beings for sport.
Among this was the Lantern Hound, magical, mercurial, and dangerous in equal measure. The mysterious lantern hours were the first sound a creature often hears when a wild hunt comes upon them.
While each specimen was unique, a typical Lantern Hound was like a massive wolf, its skull-like head burning with a fey flame. This flickering conflagration was as much a part of the hound as flesh and fur, with the color changing depending on the hound's mood.
The fur of the hound was ashen grey, often painted with symbols of the wild hunt to which the hound was pledged. When roused to a fury, the baying of lanterns hounds was cacophonous, a mixture of roaring flame and wolfish snarls.
Lantern Hounds were powerful fey beasts that hunted like wolves and shed magical light wherever they stalked. They were fast, strong, and far more intelligent than they appeared. When in a pack, they were most fearsome, working together to take down mighty prey.
However, they were still no match for the Princess and her mount. The lizard made quick work of them with its long sticky tongue, shooting like a bullet at the hounds before swallowing them in one gulp. The fey dog's fire sizzled against Tiki's skin like a lighted match thrown over a river.
The Lantern Hounds who faced the Princess had easier death, though. With a snap of her whip, it curled on the hound's neck, and with a flick of her hand, the dog's head rolled on the ground. All of this was done by the Princess, sitting in comfort on the back of her pet.
While Ren . . . Ren didn't have to do anything. He was sitting comfortably all throughout the journey while receiving multiple EXP, gil, materials, and items.
Ren was even gladder now that he brought the Princess with him. This was so much better than having a hundred army.
But the battle didn't stop. A horde of flaming hounds, flying terrors, horned couriers, and mounted nobles came at them all day.
"What's going on?" Ren asked after an exhausting bout with a Falconer, creatures soaring in the skies in search of an elusive quarry. They have a massive body of confusing mess of humanoids and raptors. Its chest and legs allowed for a bipedal stance, while its arms were massive wings between which was nestled the fearsome head of a falcon.
"I thought we were safe from the sky, but this is ridiculous," said Ren in exasperation. His MP had almost depleted thanks to the none stop battle. "I knew we would come across beasts here, but this is too much."
"They're numerous in this part," said the Princess without as much as catching her breath from the continuous fight. "Feys could be pernicious, mercurial, and strange on a good day. On a bad day, they can be worse than fiends from the pit. Those strange and powerful Fey belonging to the deadly revels known as Wild Hunts are far worse. Everwood had a lot of higher Feys who enjoyed these Wild hunts. Before we reach Hedgegrove, where Princess Floraia Springpetal ruled, we have to survive this twisted game of theirs."
