522 Encounters in the Hedgegrove 2



Ren didn't bother to reply. More like he couldn't come up with a reply, for the Princess's throw was harsher than an Orcs, and he lost consciousness the moment his head hit the hard road. He also suffered blunt damage, and despite his high DEF, his HP went to two digits.

"Agh! Ren!" Elena was quick to feel guilty and kneeled beside Ren, healing his HP. Thank the wise mother she didn't kill him.

Carefully, she placed Ren's head over her lap and waited for him to open his eyes. All creatures that passed by them didn't put them in their eyes like they were invisible.

Elena didn't pay them any mind either. She was focused on studying Ren's face, and before she knew it, she was softly caressing his fringe to the side and uttered in a low voice, "She must be his special someone, like Zeroth to me . . ."

On her shoulder, Tiki slithered its tongue and nuzzled its tiny lizard head against her soft cheeks.

The Princess sadly smiled. "I hope he has better luck with this girl than me with the guy I like . . ." She managed a laugh though it felt hollow.

They stayed like that for at least thirty minutes before Ren opened his eyes.

"W-what . . . happened?" Ren asked, disoriented. When he realized that he was on the Princess's lap, he bolted up and sat.

"What's going on?" he asked, confused and a little on guard with Elena. Did she do something to him again?

The last time he remembered was . . . there were drunk gnomes and satyrs, and the rest was history.

Elena only stood to her feet and said in a strangely snappy tone. "You got drunk and passed out."

". . ." Ren rubbed his head. Why did he feel like something important happened, and he couldn't remember? His head was hurting too.

"Let's go. We've wasted enough time already." Elena moved forward without another word, and Ren thought that something must have really happened for the Princess to act that way.

Ren shot to his feet and went after Elena. They moved forward in silence for about fifteen minutes when he could no longer stand the tension between them.

"Did something happened when I got drunk?"

"Nothing," Elena answered, swift and brusque.

Ren clamped his mouth shut, looked at the sky, scratched his head, and decided not to talk about it anymore. He would let the Princess's mood lighten a bit before he would ask again.

He could only hope that they would be nearing the palace soon. But to his dismay, there seemed to be no end to encounters in this maze.

The next was an encounter with a group of gnome thieves (spies) leaping down from the hedge walls in a planned and well-coordinated attack against Ren and Elena. They were working for the Queen of Air and Darkness, the leader of the Winter Court.

They didn't live five seconds after they said that. Elena eliminated them on the spot with a powerful wind magic.

"The Queen of Air and Darkness . . ." Ren uttered.

"She's once a kind lady. Some even said Maeve was next in line to be the queen of the Seelie fey court," Elena said, her face oddly serious and foreboding.

"But she took her demesne of winter too far and blanketed the fey realm and the material plane in a coat of ice, shadowed by sunless skies. Maeve would not yield, and she lost everything. Her true name was taken from her, her place on the court revoked, and they banished her to a lightless demi-plane of frigid cold."

Ren didn't comment and thought about the storyline. Like it or not, they would have to face that Queen Fairy too.

"Let's go," Elena said. "If her minions infiltrated this far, I fear for Princess Floraia's life. We have to hurry."

And they did hurry, but these encounters stopped them every few minutes.

The next was actually a funny one. A powerful fey noble aggressively pursued the Princess for romance. And Ren was actually enjoying the show, not to mention that the noble helped them deal with these beasts and feys that wanted to do them harm.

But when the Princess had enough of the pesky noble, she turned, sprawled her hand on Ren's chest, and leaned over to him, close enough to hear his heartbeat.

"He is my betrothed, and we're actually here in the Fey Realm to find that [Lairelossë Flowers] to make our rings and tie the knot."

Agh . . . Ren's stomach roiled. He should have expected that the Princess would rope her into this.

"That's not–" true. Ren wanted to finish, but the Princess claws on his skin made him shut his mouth tight.

"Say it's true, and the Dimensional wristband is yours," she whispered in his ears. Desperate enough to offer the Dimensional Wristband as a prize for Ren's cooperation.

Ren's face turned serious. He put an arm over the Princess's shoulder and held her tight. "Yes, she is my betrothed. We're getting married after we find that flower and have a master crafter make that ring."

Ren only hoped his robotic voice was believable. He said sorry to Evie in his head a hundred times and consoled himself by thinking that this was only a game and Elena was just a fictional character.

Elena's face heated, but she kept her mouth tightly closed. Not trusting herself to say anything.

"That's a lie!" The young noble argued and pointed. "If you're truly in love, then prove it."

Ren had a bad feeling, and he was right when the noble finished.

"Kiss her in the lips, and I will retreat graciously in defeat."

How about I send your corpse graciously to the afterlife? Ren wanted to say.

But Ren's courage took a step back when he felt Elena's tight thug on his clothes. Looking at her, he found her staring at him straight in the eyes, face red and eyes half closed.

She was leaning towards him, and Ren panicked – and he wasn't easily panicked.

"It's just a kiss," Elena hissed, voice thin as a whisper. "I can't kill him. He is a noble fey, so let's just get this done and over with."

Easy for her to say. Ren thought, his brain did a mad scramble of thinking. But right now, all he could think about was Evie. Game or not, he couldn't afford to kiss anyone but her.

Ren stopped Elena's advance with a steady grip on her shoulders.

"You should only do something precious like that with the one you love," he said seriously, which made Elena stop.

He then faced the young noble with his scepter and, without a word, blew him off with a series of infernal spells.

Half daze at what Ren had just said, Elena woke up from the blast, and she yelled at Ren.

"What have you done?!"

Ren only shrugged, stored [Inferno], and said without care, "You might not be able to kill him, but there's no law saying that I can't."