After we left the duke's manor, both Shaka and I looked at each other before letting out sighs of relief.
We had no idea what to expect when we came to the duke's manor today, but this was definitely not what we had expected.
Once we were back at the inn, I handed Shaka the document that the duke had given me.
As he read it, he had the same reaction as me where he knitted his brows the more that he read it. Once he was done, he looked up at me with knitted brows as if he was asking me for my opinion on this matter.
I just shook my head to show that I didn't know what to say either, but in the end, I still said, "For now, we should go and check this out. It's the only clue that we've received so far, so it's better than nothing."
Shaka looked back at the piece of paper in his hand with knitted brows, but he still gave a nod in the end.
It was clear that both of us had misgivings about this matter, but we had no choice.
For now, the best idea was to get a good night's sleep,
…
The next morning, we woke up bright and early, but we didn't head out of the city yet.
This Bright Water City was a very large city, so there were always people that were awake.
Even early in the morning like this, there were still people that were awake doing business.
So we headed to this morning market to pick up a few things that we would need for our journey.
Since we had already become friends with the elves, after that adventure to the elven forest, I had picked up a nice souvenir.
Though the Storage Rings were special items that only the elves used, since I was someone who had the Mark of Life, they trusted me enough to make one for me.
Of course, it wasn't as big as the one that had been made for Moon, but it was more than big enough for me to use.
When no one was looking, I quickly put everything that we bought into my Storage Ring.
These things were important things that we would need if something happened in our investigations, so I made sure that they were kept safe and were easy to access.
With that, we headed out of the city.
We could have taken the carriage that the duke had provided us, but it attracted just too much attention. We had already attracted enough attention in our stay, so we wanted to avoid attracting anymore.
We had even put on disguises as we walked out of the inn this morning.
For someone like Shaka who specialized in this, it was easy for him to put on these disguises for us.
I was even envious of his makeup skills which certainly surprised me.
If the girls were here, they would definitely ask him for some lessons.
Once we reached the gate, it was easy for us to leave since we had the special pass given to us by the duke. This was something that he had slipped into the envelope that he had given me, which I was very grateful for.
With this pass, we would be able to enter and leave the city as we wanted without stirring too much of a fuss.
It wouldn't be like last time where everyone would stare at us because we had a gate closed just for us.
But when we slipped out of the city, there was someone surprising who was waiting for us.
Standing by the side of the road was a familiar figure who seemed to be waiting for someone.
When this figure saw our carriage, they suddenly waved at us which confused both me and Shaka.
However, this figure was drawing attention, so we had no choice but to stop.
When we approached, we found that it was Ronnie from the cafe we visited yesterday.
She came right up to the carriage and asked the two of us, "What are you two doing?"
But neither of us were able to respond…that was because we were both in disguise right now. Even if she had seen us, she shouldn't have been able to recognize us.
So how did she know that it was us?
Seeing the confused looks on our faces, Ronnie said with a smile, "Your eyes. You might be able to hide your appearances, but I recognized your eyes immediately."
Both Shaka and I looked at each other, specifically our eyes to see if there was anything different about them. However, we couldn't see anything special about our eyes like she had said.
In the end, we had no choice but to tell her what we were doing.
But of course, it was just an excuse.
"You're going out to search some ruins?" Ronnie said with an excited look.
I gave a nod before saying, "It's very dangerous, so that's why we're sneaking around to make sure that no one follows us."
But it was as if she didn't even hear this as Ronnie suddenly said, "I'm coming with you."
It wasn't even a question, it was a statement as if she had already made up her mind that she was going and she wouldn't broker any argument about it.
I quickly said, "I just said that it's very dangerous!"
Ronnie just waved her hand and said, "It'll be fine, it'll be fine."
I looked at Shaka and gave a nod.
At this, Shaka was about to whip the reins and make the horses go, but before he could, Ronnie had already gotten into our carriage.
It was as if she had already expected us to do this, so she jumped on before we could do anything.
We were both stunned seeing how bold she was, but at the same time, we were troubled since we couldn't just bring her along with us.
So I said, "Miss, do you really think it's a good idea to get into a carriage you can't escape from with two unknown men like this?"