The Rebirth of the Oracle

Chapter 0

After a long day of walking through the woods, they had set up camp in a clearing they came across, come nighttime.

The night, bright as it was, did not stop fatigue from overcoming the princess. With that in mind, the mage and the knight put forward a little consideration and decided to rest until the sun rose.

A few weeks had passed after they'd set off on their journey. The capital was far behind them now, but they weren't getting any near to their destination. Only one thing was certain at this point of time— the travellers were nothing short of uncomfortable with each other, and it felt like the situation wouldn't see an improvement any time soon. The circumstances had brought them together like this, a bunch of strangers uninvolved in their respective lives until the day the prophecy was foretold by the oracle.

But they couldn't argue against this. Now, this prophecy's been forcibly made their responsibilities. They could only try to work together. A bare minimum.

The princess snuck a glance at the knight who formerly accompanied her royal brother. He was the only one with any experience of travelling through the woods (or actually, travelling at all). For the whole trip, he'd been the one leading the group through the woods, and brought back to camp hunt for them to eat. The feeling of being extra baggage for the knight who had to navigate on his own, weighed down on her again.

Though she felt guilty in thinking this, she thought she could sympathise with the knight to a certain degree. If the quest was of the sensitive sort - like they had claimed a million times as they sent the group off to their possible demise - she reckoned they would have sent one of the best knights, if not the captain of the order.

Damien was only one of the guard knights of her fourth brother (not to trivialise his significance). The gap between the third princess and the fourth brother was large, and so was the gap between the quality of the knights. The fact that they decided the knight who would be going, by draw of lots, showed exactly how much they could care less. At this fact, the princess felt like she could relate to him— one sacrificial lamb to another.

On the other hand, there was the mage. From the very start, he asserted the importance of this quest in deciding his future. Lucius was aiming for one of the seats on the royal court of mages. He said expectations from his predecessor were riding on his shoulders, and he would see to that none of us would be obstacles in his way.

Damien had gained his noble approval with his expert navigation of the terrain and his hunting ability. The princess sensed that it wasn't quite so for herself; she had yet to prove her role in this quest. It was not a point of his to conceal his adverse feelings for the princess, rather expressing his dissatisfaction towards her participation through backhanded remarks. Well, it wasn't like she couldn't understand what he was feeling.

She admitted she hadn't an idea why she had to come along and what it was she apparently could offer to the group. She recounted the prophecy:

When the one of royal blood has been reborn,
Along with the mage and the sword of the east,
Will they travel to Woods of Breklum,
To stop an evil that threatens our peace.

No matter how far she tried to reach, she couldn't figure out what relevance royal blood had in this quest. If there was some ability all with royal blood had, she hadn't any knowledge of it. Then, to lead? She definitely was not a leader type. If anything, based on what she'd seen so far, Damien was most likely to lead the whole journey.

So the prophecy is a royalist, too, she thought. Well, it's because it was so vague that they could make do with sending me instead of them.