"The Eastern Route is far away. The middle route is closer to us. Shouldn’t you use the closest route?" Asked a girl who was travelling with two other people. One was the old man, and the other was a young man who seemed romantically interested in this girl.
Even other members of the group looked at her with hopeful eyes because she was really strong, in fact, the strongest here. Because of her, their journey has been very smooth, fast and safe.
Now, if they lost her, they would be completely on their own to defend themselves. Not to mention, the Middle Route was more dangerous than other routes.
"To cross the Pine Zone, I will take the eastern route. The person that I want to meet should be on the other side of the route." Athena wanted to go alone.
She did not want to involve this group in her matter. There was no need for anyone to know anything about her.
Athena had a feeling that she might meet some of the organisation members on this route. So she wanted to travel alone and not drag these people into her mess.
The Goddess did not want them to lose their lives. Right now, she was the strongest in this group, and till now, she has been protecting this entire group from bandits and monsters that they met while travelling to the Pine zone.
The City where they had stopped was 59 km away from the middle route, while more than 100 km away from the eastern route.
The group had decided to use the middle route since this was the closest route from their location.
This was good news for her since this would mean the group wouldn’t be travelling with her.
"I apologise! But my goal isn’t to cross the Pine zone and reach the other side. My goal is to meet a person that I have been separated from for many, many decades."
Hearing this, no one tried to persuade her anymore. Since her mind was set and her goal was the Eastern Route, trying to convince her to travel with them would be just too selfish and imposing.
No one wanted to offend her or anger her by forcing her, having seen how powerful she is.
It wasn’t decided that they would pay Athena, or she wasn’t hired to be their bodyguard. In fact, that role fell on the leader. But Athena was stronger than her. Hence, instead of taking any money, everyone decided to reward her instead. After paying her for protecting them throughout this entire journey, everyone from the group went their separate ways, except for the trio.
Athena doesn’t really care about money. She had more than enough wealth to spend. Although her family and everything else were destroyed, she still saved a huge portion of gold and platinum coins and other valuable items.
But in this journey, she was pretending to be a poor Sect Discipline and, without risking her cover being blown, she had to do some extra things to make sure that no one suspects a thing.
She thought the trio waited for everyone to leave because they did not have any money, which she was totally fine with.
She was about to say that there was no need to give her any money, but then....
"Actually, we also need to travel to the Eastern Route." The old man, who had been silent from the beginning of this conversation, spoke up.
"Young Lady, if you don’t mind, can we continue travelling with you for a little longer?" Compared to other members, Athena had a favourable impression of these three.
But Athena still did not respond as she was thinking whether she should take them or not. The first thing that worried her was that these three would slow her down.
After so many decades of waiting, she couldn’t wait to reunite with her other half. Her other half was the only family member who was left alive in this world.
Even her dear maid was silently killed by the organisation and replaced by someone who looked very much like her.
The second thing, based on what she observed in the last few days of travelling together, was that these three were hiding their identities and were in disguise. It was as if they were running from something. They always appeared extremely cautious.
This also made her suspicious and hesitant to bring them along. What if these three turned out to be some criminals who ran away and now were seeking shelter on the other side of the tunnel world or somewhere within the six continents?
Seeing Athena hesitate, the old man quickly added.
At the same time, she always felt like she had seen or met this old man somewhere before. So the Goddess did not refuse them.
"Actually, we are searching for our Exiled Crown Prince. Right now, we have hidden our identities for that reason."
"Grandpa, what if she turns out to be an enemy and attacks us instead?" Alfred’s granddaughter Bree could hardly believe what her grandfather just done.
But Alfred signalled her to calm down.
She pouted in frustration but said nothing. The nobleman felt that Sir Alfred must have a really good reason for revealing that secret to this woman. Unlike her, his reaction was calmer.
’I have to admit, she looks cute when Bree pouts.’ Mateo looked at her and smiled. If anyone saw the way he looked at her, that person would instantly know that this wasn’t a normal gaze. It was a gaze that was full of love and affection.
The reason Alfred chose to reveal the secret to a stranger is that he had seen her in his vision of the future.
This is one of the reasons he joined his group: to travel together.
Since their future was bound together, and she was protecting them in his vision, he felt she was trustworthy enough to know their secret. It wasn’t like they planned to keep this a secret for a long time.
As long as they met their exiled crown prince, there was no need to worry about anything else. If needed, they could all temporarily retreat to the six continents and make plans there.
Hearing this, Athena paused. Since she came out of the pocket dimension, she has been constantly travelling and moving from one place to another, just to reach her clone. Although she didn’t keep track of what changes had happened in the decades that she stayed inside the pocket dimension, she still heard a thing or two about the Celestial Dragon Empire. Around almost 2 decades back, she travelled out of the pocket dimension just to see the newly born Prince.
At that time, she had signed a whole binding contract, which made her his fiancée. She did this for political reasons, not for any romantic reasons.
After that, she even forgot about this matter and focused on improving her strength and doing other stuff.
But she still cared about the news or changes that recently happened within that empire. The news of a new emperor succeeding the old king had reached her ears. At the same time, she also received the news that her fiancé was exiled and sent to one of the six continents.
So now hearing that an old man accompanied by one young girl and one young man, she instantly knew that they were from the Celestial Dragon Empire.
"Are you heading to the six continents to search and find Aditya?" Athena could not help but ask.
"Yes! Do you personally know him?" Alfred asked. There are a few names within the entire world that almost everyone knows. This includes the names of the seven goddesses and the man who is engaged to all of them.
It might be possible that she only heard his name, but never actually met him.
"No!" Athena shook her head. But she believed that once she found her clone and fixed the problem that her clone was facing, their next target would be to find the man who was engaged to them.
"Actually, we learned that the Crown Prince might be travelling through the eastern route. Although we are not sure when he will be travelling during the drought, I have a strong feeling that we might meet him while travelling through the route." Hearing this, Athena did not hesitate to agree to let them travel with them.
So they spend almost one hourtraveling together. The four of them flew towards the eastern route.
They travelled slowly because Alfred was still weak and couldn’t use his full strength.
While travelling, there was hardly any conversation between the group. Everyone was just focused on travelling to the eastern route as soon as possible.
While walking in the crowd towards the entrance of the Eastern Route, Athena looked at Alfred and then asked.
"Are you perphaps Butler Aflred?"
Bree and Mateo looked stunned. They did not expect Athena to guess so accurately.
But Alfred just smiled and nodded his head.
"I am!"
Hearing this, Athena’s gaze softened. Finally, she had met someone whom she could trust. Even their earlier claim of having found Aditya left a lingering doubt. Athena isn’t always overly suspicious of everything. But her current situation, where she had to constantly look through deception and lies and hide from her enemies, made it very difficult for her to trust anyone.
"Uncle, don’t you recognise me?" For that line, Athena used her real voice.
Hearing that familiar voice, Aflred stopped walking. His expression also changed.
Meanwhile, Mateo and Bree looked at each other. They didn’t expect this woman to also use a disguise this entire time. Her disguise was so well done that despite travelling together for days, they couldn’t find anything suspicious about her.
"Is that you At.....!!" Realising that there might be a good reason for her to hide herself, Alfred did not say her name out loud.
Athena appreciated his quick thinking and nodded her head with a small smile.
"Uncle, what happened?" She wanted to know why the most trusted man of the Former King was in a place like this and looking for Aditya.
But then, a voice sent chills down her spine.
"I have finally found you." A creepy voice came from her right. This made the group stop.
Twenty meters to her right, there was a man in a black cloak.
Instantly, ten more of these mysterious figures surrounded them and were isolated from the crowd.
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