I gently covered Luna with the blanket and then picked Luna up from her waist. Luna curled up in my arms and snored quietly with a blissful smile on her face.

'I don't know about the other nights, but Luna should be able to get a good night of sleep tonight. At least she'll be able to have a nice dream. I can't give Luna anything. I can only promise to always remain at her side, regardless of where we go or what we do. I'll always let her stay next to me and look after me. This should've been a request I made of her, yet she saw it as me showing her affection.'

'If this makes her my mistress, then I think this mistress of mine is too pitiful.'

"Is the moment of bliss over?" Lorana opened the curtain. I gently ran my hand across Luna's face. I then straightened up to look at Lorana and replied, "Uhm… I guess so. What's wrong? Is something up?"

Lorana shrugged and replied, "I think that you're the only one who can act like nothing's the matter in this situation, Your Majesty. When you and your maid were getting cosy, we three did our best for our lives. Look at your tent and the ones around. We did all of that."

I pointed at Luna who was lying on the bed. Lorana hesitated for a moment then laughed dryly and scratched her head. She said, "But the credit for saving Luna goes to you, Your Majesty… Let's put all that aside for now, though. Your Majesty, please come over. Although the three of us have reached a consensus, the final decision lies with you."

"Is there a problem?"

"Yes. Come with me."

I left the tent. This rest station isn't s.p.a.cious. It was lit up by the fire right now. It's late at night now, but the guards coming back and forth were moving in a very compact manner. We naturally have to increase our defences when it's likely that we'll be attacked at night. Lorana and I went up to Tarak's tent and then squeezed in.

"Greetings, Your Majesty."

Tarak rose as soon as he saw me. He banged his head on the fixed tent and hissed due to the pain. Philes couldn't help but burst out laughing, thereby revealing a really cute smile…

'I keep feeling that Philes is actually a little cuter than Shusia…… Stop! Stop!! What am I thinking?! Philes is a guy!'

"h.e.l.lo everyone. I heard that something came up?"

I sat down on one side and looked at them. Philes nodded then took out a parchment and explained to me, "Your Majesty, this is something we discovered among the items the group left behind. This is their map. It appears that the group has been here for a long time."

I spread the map open. This map was relatively older compared to ours. It appeared as though it had been exposed to intense sunlight. I used the fire as lighting to check out the pen marks on it and remarked, "They've gone to a fair number of places. They've made at least two-times more progress than we have. With this, we can save ourselves from going to a fair few places."

Tarak shook his head and corrected me, "That is not it, Your Majesty. That is not what we wanted to say. Your Majesty, even if they have searched certain places, we need to search it ourselves, too, in case they did not find it. The most informational piece of information on this map is not where they have searched, but where they are headed next. Your Majesty, take a look at this location they marked here."

Tarak pointed to the mark. I frowned and looked as I looked at the marking, where they drew multiple circles around a location and asked, "This is the place they were going to search next? If that was the case, they wouldn't have marked it so many times. Are you saying that they thought this was the place where it is most likely to be located?"

Lorana leaned over and bent over at the waist in front of me to look at the map and said, "I would surmise so. We found a number of things on their bodies and many of them were symbolic items of those they killed. It looks like the group had killed a fair number of people. They could be considered the most experienced team here. They have searched for a long time already and guessed that this was the place. While we have searched the places they have searched, I think we should head to this place next."

'It looks like she doesn't realise she has a decent body.'

Embarra.s.sed, I lowered my head and fixated my eyes on the map.

'If I looked up, I'd be spinning at the sight of the top-half of her pretty white melons…'

In a hesitant tone, Tarak explained, "I was thinking the same thing. It is just that I am a little concerned, since if we base it on the time that has pa.s.sed, there should be a lot of others who have pinpointed that location as well. I think that if this place is the most likely to be correct spot, then it will not be just one team that knows of it. I think there will be lots of people there."

"So you're saying we might be marching into a trap ourselves?"

Philes looked at me and in a serious tone suggested, "There is another possibility. And that is that this team was bait. I say that because we found out that this group was very odd. Lots of them are evidently Socina's criminals. We found an amnesty on them. They had a letter on them. They were called 'three'. That means that they are not the only team Socina sent. It is very probable that they are bait to lure us to the location here, to annihilate us."

I nodded and then looked at the area on the map. I looked up at Tarak and asked, "Tarak, are you familiar with the place?"

Tarak nodded and replied; "Your Majesty, this place is the ruins of where the original city was. The place is as I described, ruins with just pillars and collapsed buildings there."

I nodded and responded, "In that case, I do think it's a good place to lay an ambush. There's no other feasible place to set up an ambush other than the ruins. However, is the place large enough to set up enough people for an ambush? Also, we'll leave right away if there's an ambush. It's not easy to engage ambushes with horses in the desert. I don't think it's an ambush."

Lorana nodded and added, "I don't think it's an ambush, either, because the desert is so flat that it's impossible to use an ambush tactic. In my opinion, if they're planning something, it should be a…"

"A skirmish."

I placed the map down and looked at the three of them. I then sternly went on, "This is a skirmish and a big fight at that. If they spread this news all throughout the desert, then it was to lure everyone to this location and then have everyone engage each other in a large scale battle. It would be the biggest battle royale. Then the people who spread this news would be able to sit back and reap the rewards."

"What are we going to do then?"

I slammed the map hard on the table with my hand. I then looked at the three of them with nervousness and excitement. I seriously said, "We'll go there, too. If they're the mantis that stalks the cicada, then we'll be the oriole that lurks behind them!"

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