Chapter 3: Chapter 3
Rowena sighed "Before rebirth, I was a scholar in the royal household of the northern empire, the Li royalties. Since I was immature then and offended some aristocrats, it gave me a big target on my back but the princess of the north, Princess Tatiana Li gave me a place. She literally picked me up from the dumps and made me part of her trusted aides...but I betrayed her due to huge misunderstandings. I need to repay her, to make up for the pain I caused." She gazed at me with hopeful eyes "please help me."
I frowned "What misunderstandings?"
She froze and gave an awkward smile "I...can't tell you yet."
'She's definitely hiding something but I don't have another choice.' I relented "Alright."
"Really? Thank you so much."
"So what should I do now?"
She shook her head "Nothing. We wait." I blinked and she quickly continued "She has to pick us up."
"And that would take hours? Days?" I asked. She kept leaving half-baked sentences.
"Well" She paused.
"Well what?"
"I was counting. That should be approximately 1month 2days 5hours 15minutes 30secs." she said with a proud expression.
My face twitched and I almost facepalmed "At least tell me where you live."
"I live here." She deadpanned.
"Please tell me you're joking." 'In this alley?'
"No, welcome to our home." She said spreading her hands "It has everything you need, a mattress," She pointed at a moldy thing. 'I don't even know what's living inside that.'
She continued pointing to the trash can "Food," I thought 'Not happening.'
"And a first class viewing ticket of the streets." She pointed to the roof.
'I want to slap her...Can I?'
"Seriously, stop joking."
"I told you I'm not." She shrugged "Well I'm not the one experiencing it firsthand." She laughed and said when she saw I wasn't laughing. "Come on, that was funny."
I pursed my lips "Not funny" I reiterated.
"Alright coffin face" She murmured.
"What did you say?" I asked.
"Nothing." Smiling brightly she tilted her head.
"What name are we going to use Seah or Rowena?" I asked
"Let's go with Seah. It's a fresh start."
* * *
Nightfall
Two weeks had passed since that day and surprisingly the food from the trash can in this kingdom is not that bad. I haven't gone out of the alley yet since I'm still trying to understand this world and get to know Rowena better.
The name of this world is Otis. There are 5 empires in it,the central, northern, southern, eastern and western along with a few tribes scattered all over. Some of the empires are divided into kingdoms.
The southern empire which is the largest is divide into twelve kingdoms, the central empire into 2 kingdoms and the western empire into 5 kingdoms. The northern and eastern empires are not divided.
The kingdoms are ruled by kings and queens and the empires by emperors or in the case of the north and west empresses. The north are allies with the south, the west they can tolerate but the east they absolutely hate, emphasis is needed.
I'm located at the fringes of Zephron, the western capital of the northern empire. Due to its large size the capital is divided into 4, Illia, Angeli, Zephron, and Sithin. Which are south, central, west and east respectively. Nine out of twelve months the empire is covered in snow 'Thank God it's not snowing right now.'
Angeli is where the royals and upper-class aristocrats are located, Illia is the scholars paradise, Zephron is the center of commerce and Sithin is where the military is based.
Right now I'm preparing myself for an excursion outside the alley. Rowena said there's a festival today and free food is in abundance which is exactly what I need right now. I'm going to clean up at the lake outside the city gates.
I hurried out of the alley and onto the main road leading out of the capital. As I passed through the gates I waved at the guards and they nodded. They were used to "Rowena" heading out of the city, if they were in a good mood they'd help her patrol the road to the lake.
There were two people in the lake when I got there and they both chatted about which household they would visit when the festival starts. I sat by the lake and waited for them to finish cleaning up.
After a few minutes they left and I felt for emotions in the air to check for other people. Once I was sure there was no one, I took of my clothes and dove into the lake.
"What the..." I shivered.
"Oh I forgot to tell you although it's not snowing the water is still very cold." Rowena reminded chuckling.
"Thanks for sharing." I said through my chattering teeth.
"Anything else I need to know" I asked after I got back to shore, got dressed and hurried into the city.
"Well we'll be going to the capital city protector's residence." She said.
"The city protector's residence is in Zephron?" I asked puzzled.
She shook her head "It's just a branch of it."
I nodded and followed the directions she gave.
When I got there the long queue was surprising "There are quite a lot of people." I commented.
"You should be happy it's not an uncontrolled crowd we'd probably be pushed down." Rowena replied.
I quickly joined the queue to collect celebratory baskets. The baskets consists of things from the central capital city, Angeli. Although Zephron is the center of commerce in the capital there are still special items found only in Angeli.
"Are those aristocrats?" I was astonished when I saw them.
"Everyone is equal when queuing during the Millard festival. You just have to make sure you're clean or you'll be beaten up by those low class aristocrats later if you get them dirty." Rowena explained. "After sharing the celebratory basket there would be a large table of food to eat from." She said drooling.
After collecting the basket, a table of food was brought out and it was indeed large. I went directly to the table and began to fill the remaining space in the basket with food that wouldn't go bad easily and a few water jugs. I stuffed some chicken wings in my and started heading back.
"We had a good yield..." Rowena chattered away in my head.
Just as I reached the street leading to my hideout someone called out to me.
"Excuse me" I stopped in my tracks and as soon as I saw the young lady calling out to me I was overwhelmed by a wave of negative emotions. Not from the young lady but my spirit space.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone