’With the strength of the soldiers here, the bandits shouldn’t have even made two dimensional jumps before being captured.’
Gina’s eyes widened slightly when she heard all this, and she realised that Jason was right! Gina hadn’t even been thinking about things from that angle, and she was already prepared to just hand over the Prince to the army and allow them to do whatever they wanted. But Jason was right about the army being suspicious. There is no way these bandits would’ve been able to kidnap Kai from under the noses of soldiers that were this powerful unless there was something fishy going on. Gina’s hand tightened against Jason’s forearm, and Jason patted her arm calmly as he spoke.
’Calm down, we don’t even know if that theory is right for now. But let’s just keep anything my subordinates find to ourselves for now. We’ll decide who to tell later.’
Gina nodded in understanding, and Jason smiled again as Kai came over and began to pull him forward while shouting that they were heading to the transport!
"The army brought a large windship with them! Have you ever been on a windship!? No!? It’s awesome! The ship uses magic to move, and the people who made it used magic that my father brought with him! My teacher said it’s one of the greatest marvels we’ve ever seen!"
Jason couldn’t help but smile as he listened to Kai explaining everything about the windship. Jason could almost feel Kai’s excitement rolling off him like a wave! As they walked through the forest, the Royal Army was standing around Kai and the rest of them in a protective circle in case they ran into any dangerous monsters on this journey. But Jason knew that they wouldn’t run into anything since he had various subordinates in the shadows that were killing every single animal or monster that dared to get within a hundred feet of them. Right now, Jason just wanted to enjoy spending time with his younger brother. They walked like this for a few hundred meters before they finally arrived at a large clearing that had a literal pirate ship that was floating in the air.
The ship was painted brown with various glyphs around it that looked suspiciously like runes. The sails were black in colour, but they also had various runic carvings on them. Jason took a closer look at the carvings as he approached, and he realised that he was right about them being runes. This was the Aruna language, and the runes on the ship were third and fourth-grade runes that were only crafted for [Lift] and [Push] effects on the ship. So his father was also a Runecrafter? Jason felt a small grin spreading on his lips when he realised that there was one more thing connecting him with his father, and Jason watched as the various soldiers easily jumped off the ground to reach the ship. Jason reached down and grabbed Kai around the waist, and Kai let out an excited scream as Jason jumped towards the ship.
....
[Vanta]
[191 Dimensional Leaps Away from Earth]
The journey to Vanta was very uneventful for Jason and Gina. Even though Kai looked extremely excited to be on the windship, Jason and Gina had already gotten used to air travel since they were always using Ragnar or Trigon to travel a lot, so during most of the journey, they were just keeping Kai company as he gushed over the various scenes that he picked out.
"Fritz, look! It’s an Elephant-giraffe!"
Kai shouted while dragging Fritz towards the edge of the ship, and Fritz smiled as she indulged him. Jason was standing with his back against the hull of the ship, and he enjoyed the breeze against his hair as they travelled quickly across the worlds. Gina was leaning against Jason’s chest, and she reached up and took some of Jason’s hair in her hand with a smile.
’Your hair is getting really long.’
Jason hummed calmly.
"Do you want to help me cut it?"
"Aww, do you really have to cut it? I’ll help you tie it up later. I actually like it."
Jason couldn’t help but chuckle at Gina’s response, and he pulled her closer for a small kiss.
"Hey, Jason, you two are kissing. So are the two of you married? Mama said that only married couples can kiss each other."
A voice came from behind Gina, and Jason glanced down to see Kai looking up at them with wide, curious eyes. Jason was about to answer the boy, but Gina raised her finger to Kai and showed off the blood red ring there.
"We’re actually planning to get married very soon."
"Oh, that ring is so cool~! Is that a ruby? I’ve never seen one before, but my teacher says it’s great for magic spells!"
Gina laughed as she began to talk to Kai, and Jason just listened halfheartedly as he looked around the ship. There were various soldiers standing around calmly, but on the other side of the ship, Jason could see General Zod speaking to another soldier about something. Jason narrowed his eyes at that, and he watched as General Zod left the soldier behind and went down to the lower deck. Jason didn’t know why he had a bad feeling about that guy, but Jason had learned in the past to always trust his instincts, and he knew that he would have to keep an eye on General Zod for now. Jason sent a few subordinates through the shadows to tail the General, and he told them to make sure they didn’t reveal themselves unless something serious was about to happen. The subordinates went to do as they were told, and Jason looked down as Kai pulled him into the conversation again.
The windship travelled across three dimensional tears, and Jason made sure the system kept tabs on where they were going so that it would be easier to get back on track after they left Vanta. Thankfully, the system said that going to Vanta would only add one more dimensional jump to the journey, so Jason was fine with that. It took another twenty minutes and one last Dimensional jump before the Wind ship finally arrived at a large harbour that had many other windships tied to the docks. There were many dark-skinned people walking around the harbour and shouting at the top of their lungs as they went about their business, but once the royal vessel appeared, everyone looked up in awe and began to wave their hands happily! There was a large town attached to the docks, and as the windship travelled over the town and towards the castle in the distance, Jason could see some fishermen and other traders on the market streets. Many of the children were running after the wind ship as it passed overhead, and Jason could see them releasing small magical fireworks from their hands while laughing. Vanta was a Rank III world that was filled with large oceans and rivers. Most of the people here worked as either fishermen or hunters who went out into the ocean to hunt Aquatic Magic Beasts that were too dangerous for the fishermen to handle. The Vanta People mostly had dark skin and yellow eyes, and they had a very high affinity for aquatic magic that allowed them to harmonize easily with the oceans.
As the windship travelled over the large main town, Jason could see a massive castle in the distance that had multiple statues of Aquatic deities surrounding it. There were large octopi as well as mermaids and even a man who looked suspiciously like the Greek god Neptune. The castle itself shone with a blue luster whenever the sun hit the stones, and it had been built just at the edge of a large cliff that overlooked the ocean on one side and the large main town on the other side.