The Martial Unity

Her expression grew uncomfortable.

Not just because there were people around them at the street corner, pedestrians, travelers, and adventurers walking past them in a brisk flux.

But also because of her own discomfort.

How could she tell them?

How could she tell them that she had begun experiencing strange sensations when she had woken up a few hours ago after finally getting some sleep? Sensations that were extremely familiar to the kind of sensation that she had experienced when the alien virus infecting Planet Amadeus III grew active.

The sensations tingled on the skin across her entire body in very distinct fashions.

From very distinct directions.

The stimuli weren’t merely in her head. She wasn’t hallucinating them.

She was reacting to them.

With what felt like new sense organs.

The stimuli she experienced didn’t emerge from her immediate environment. It wasn’t the wind, the sound, the smell or anything else. She had experienced it even on the ship when they had yet to enter the Arima Star System in highly sterilized environments within the ship.

No, these were chronic sensations, and they came from afar. It was like gazing at the cosmos from outer space. The light from the distant stars tingled on her retina, creating a distinct sensation from what her mind could recognize as a distant source.

That was what it was like.

Like her skin had become the equivalent of a retina for… a different kind of stimulus.

One that she had experienced when she first experienced the virus on Planet Amadeus III.

In her heart, she knew what these tingling sensations were.

’Infected worlds.’

Even thinking the thought made her feel like she was losing her mind. Like she had some kind of schizophrenic mental illness. This was not normal. And when she considered the odds of whether new mysterious sensations were something astronomically fantastical or simply a consequence of mental illness, the odds weren’t in her favor.

The silence between them grew a little awkward before Ria finally squeezed out an answer to Misha’s question.

”I… feel drawn to them,” she admitted. ”I feel a connection to them.”

Misha simply stared at her with an unnerving pointed stare, her blood-red cybernetic pupils adjusting, as if scanning Ria’s body language, making Ria feel all the more self-conscious. The half-blood hemosapien was normally relaxed in her demeanor, but she had exhibited a pointed interest in Ria since she woke up on the Blood Arc.

”Drawn to them,” she echoed Ria’s words blandly. ”The feeling seems to be mutual.”

”Sshh!” Ria stepped forward, hushing her, before staring at Misha with intense eyes of alarm.

The question she was asking the latter hung in the air, even if she didn’t say it out loud.

”Have you forgotten my eyes are cybernetic?” Misha pointed out, tapping the side of her head. ”When I’m knocked unconscious, they automatically record and store the data in my neural inlay.”

Ria’s eyes widened.

That meant that she had likely seen a lot.

Perhaps even everything if the range of her cybernetic eyeballs.

”They were engineered with and crafted by a dwarf,” Misha answered, almost reading her mind.

Dwarven craftsmanship and technology.

That explained it.

She had seen everything that had happened.

Her eyeballs must have recorded Kane saving Runark, Ria fighting two homoarachnoids, Sage Sayfeel, and perhaps even the fact that the entirety of the homoarachnoid population was trying to capture one and only one person.

Ria.

She might have even caught a glimpse of her father’s intervention, although her father had probably taken precautions, so maybe not.

It was no wonder that Misha had directed pointed attention towards Ria.

”Ummm…” Sternon remarked with a frown. ”It’s not fun to be part of a conversation you don’t understand. Just what the hell are you two talking about?”

”That’s for her to explain,” Misha remarked quietly. ”It’s not my prerogative to spill her secrets.”

Sternon and Siliscia turned towards Ria with a puzzled expression while Runark directed a tense glance towards her. The young man knew that Sage Sayfeel was listening nearby, most likely. He wasn’t sure that she ought to have shared with them her most extreme secrets.

”Fine.”

Ria’s tone shifted to one of acceptance.

”I’ll tell all of you everything,” she said with a more certain tone of voice, her amber eyes glinting with decisiveness. ”But…”

She glanced around them.

”Not here. Let’s go somewhere private. What I’m about to say is extremely important, personal, and secretive. Let’s shift places.”

It wasn’t long before they found themselves in the inn room that she had booked several days ago before she and Runark had departed for the Strehegeld Star System. The inn room was simple and small, but hardly secure enough by itself.

”This is the place you want to have this conversation,” Sternon scoffed.

”It’ll do,” Ria remarked, taking a seat on a chair at the small table. ”Isn’t that right, Sayfeel?”

For a moment, nothing happened. Sternon and Siliscia simply stared at her like she was delirious. ”Who—”

WHOOSH

A sixth presence materialized in the room like he had teleported out of thin air, causing Sternon and Siliscia to jump up, startled.

”What the hell?!” Sternon leaped away with an alarmed expression. Misha’s expression tightened, but she remained calm, as she had expected it.

Sayfeel gazed only at Ria, as if the others in the room didn’t even exist. ”…Are you sure about this?”

He caught himself from addressing her with royal protocol despite how painful it was, since that would be a dead giveaway. If she changed her mind, his presence and tailing of her could still be explained in other ways.

She nodded at him, directing a sweeping gaze towards them. ”They risked their lives to try and protect me. I want this party to remain intact. I have decided to trust them with my true identity.”

Sage Sayfeel simply stared at her for several moments before heaving a soft breath and closing his eyes.

”If that is what you desire, Your Highness.”

Sternon and Siliscia’s eyes widened at those words as they turned towards her with a stunned expression. Even Misha was moved by the sudden, indirect admission.

Ria faced her friends with a straight expression.

”My true name is Ria Quarrier Silas Kandria, and I am the princess of the Kandrian Empire.”