I know this is late but Happy New Year and I hope that your holidays were awesome! This chapter took so long cause I was busy with finishing the previous semester, final exams, and the holidays, but I finally managed to finish it! Hope that you enjoy it!


Larna, Prince Gerald, and the Claes traveled in a carriage, following the directions indicated by Alexander, the teddy bear magic tool. They were accompanied by a small group of knights traveling in a second carriage just behind them.

They had been traveling silently for a few hours – the sun had set a while ago and stars littered the sky - when Larna took a map out of her bag. After looking at it for a bit, she turned to the others. "So, according to this map and the direction that Alexander is pointing us at, it seems like we're heading for Town, a small fishing village," she informed them.

"Makes sense," said Luigi, after thinking it over. "The village is small and somewhat remote, so it's the last place most would think of looking for a pair of kidnapped young nobles."

There's silence for a moment before Luigi speaks again. "We can expect that they'd be guarded. Therefore, we should prepare ourselves to fight." While he was aware that the knights accompanying them weren't pushovers, the duke did not want to take any chance in safely rescuing his children.

"Oh, that won't be a problem," said Gerald as he fiddled with his sheathed sword. Though he looked otherwise calm, there was a fire in his eyes that promised burning retribution to whoever the kidnappers were.

'Prince Gerald is a skilled swordsman, and I'm no slouch myself,' thought Luigi.

'However, neither of us holds a candle to Milli.'

His wife has been a skilled duelist in her youth, winning many competitions during her time at the Academy. And while her current responsibilities as Duchess Claes prevented her from practicing as much as before, Millidiana still kept her skills sharp - though she practices in secret since she's a bit embarrassed by it.

Whoever was keeping Keith and Katarina captive should pray that they end up facing the knights instead of his wife.


The Claes siblings sneaked through the dark warehouse in search of an exit, Katarina wielding the sword she had taken from the thug while Keith held a wooden harpoon in his hands - they had come across a few of these harpoons, and Keith had taken one to use as a makeshift spear.

'Hopefully, we'll be able to get out without having to fight,' thought Keith as he held his improvised weapon.

But despite their best efforts to escape without notice, they ended up running into two more thugs.

They were just as scruffy looking as the one that Katarina had knocked out, but that's where the similarities ended. The first one looked around their parent's ages; his head was bald, and he wore an eyepatch over his right eye. The other one was closer to their age, maybe a few years older, and was taller than Keith with chestnut brown eyes, brown hair, and a single gold earring of his left ear.

Once they noticed the siblings, the thugs charged at them, the eyepatch-wearing one swinging his sword at Katarina while his younger companion engaged Keith.

Katarina nimbly dodged the initial attack then tried to disarm the thug - whom she mentally dubbed as "Eyepatch" - while he was off-balance. He swiftly recovered and blocked Katarina's blade with his own, though the force of the blow slightly pushed him back. His eyes widened in surprise but then tried to use his superior strength against Katarina, but she disengaged, making Eyepatch stumble again. Again, he recovered, and Katarina had to dodge a horizontal swing that almost took her head before parrying another attack.

As their swords clashed, Katarina realized that, while not bad, this guy's sword skills weren't too good either. Katarina had trained with the sword for years and sparred against Prince Gerald and Prince Alan many times. Compared to the twin princes, this guy was less than average, so Katarina was sure that she could defeat him.

She was more concerned about how Keith was doing without access to his magic.


Keith was doing rather well as he stepped back from a thrust then used his harpoon to block the swing that followed. It had been a bit difficult to translate his sword skills to a spear-like weapon, but he had managed to do so.

That's not to say that the fight was easy.

While he had trained with the sword for almost as long as Katarina, and he was reasonably good at it, Katarina had always been sturdier than him and had an abundance of stamina that Keith couldn't hope to match. The earring-wearing man he was fighting was both bigger and stronger than him, and Keith could already feel himself growing a bit tired as he ducked a swing and blocked another, the force of the blow making his arms tremble.

He needed to end this quickly so he could help Katarina.

Another hard swing was blocked.

CRACK!

While the harpoon hadn't broken, there was now a noticeable crack along its shaft.

Earring-guy swung his sword again, intending to break the shaft completely, but Keith was quicker. He nimbly dodged the downwards swing and grabbed the sword's blade with the harpoon's hooked tip. He pulled the sword out of the thug's hand with a simple movement and sent it flying into the darkness.

With an angry growl, Earring-guy lunged at Keith, attempting to use his superior size and strength to his advantage, but Keith just used the harpoon's blunt end to strike him in the stomach, knocking the air out of the thug.


Katarina stepped back from a downwards swing then blocked a thrust that almost stabbed her shoulder. Another parry blocked a second stab aimed at her side, then Katarina responded with a fast swing and stab combination that her opponent barely stopped.

As the fight went in, Eyepatch had been growing more and more frustrated by Katarina's constant dodging and blocking, so it was only a matter of time before he made a mistake.

His next lunge was blocked, so the thug pushed back, hoping to overpower Katarina with his strength. She held him back for a bit before suddenly jumping to the side, which caused Eyepatch to stumble forward. Katarina took advantage of his surprise, and with a mighty swing, she knocked the sword out of his hand.

Her triumph was short-lived, though, as Eyepatch managed to grab her wrist and squeeze it hard, forcing her to drop her sword due to the pain. Thinking quickly, Katarina shot her leg forward and kicked the man's shin.

"OW!" He yelped and let go of her wrist.

Katarina quickly grabbed his arm and, with strength born from years of climbing trees and farming, she flipped him over her shoulder and threw him into some crates.

CRASH!


The crash got Keith and Earring-guy's attention, and they both stared wide-eyed, shocked that a teenaged noble lady had flipped an adult man larger than herself over her shoulder.

"Wow," Earring-guy breathed out in awe.

"…"

WHACK!

Earring-guy dropped to the floor, unconscious, with a large bump now on his head. Keith stood over the downed thug with the harpoon on his hands, looking very unamused. After making sure that the man was knocked out, Keith sighed in exasperation.

'I seriously do not need more rivals, especially the lowlifes holding us hostage.' he thought as he went over to check on Katarina. 'Honestly, the people Sister seduces.'


"Are you alright, Keith?" Katarina asked when she saw him coming over.

"I'm fine, Sister," he reassured her when she began to check him over. "And you?"

"Kind of, that guy grabbed my wrist really hard," she rubbed her right wrist with her left hand. "But it's nothing serious!"

Despite Katarina's reassurance, Keith still looked angry and glared at the eyepatch-wearing thug that was now unconscious on top of several broken crates, strongly tempted to walk over and kick him hard. Instead, he forced that anger down and took a deep breath. They needed to get out right now so they couldn't waste any more time.

A quick search through unconscious men's pockets produced the key for the magic restraining bracelet around Keith's wrist. Keith sighed in relief as he felt his Earth magic rush through his body once again. It had felt so wrong not to access his magic, as if an essential part of himself was just out of reach.

As soon as the manacle was off, they left the unconscious thugs behind and headed for the nearby door.

They exited the warehouse into the cold nighttime air and noticed that they were in a small coastal village.

"So, should we go there?" Katarina asked, motioning towards the village. "Someone might be able to help us."

"Maybe," Keith looked to be contemplating. "We would need to be careful, though. We don't know if those thugs have more allies."

"Yeah, that's a good poi-"

"ARRRGGGHHHH!"

The first thug that Katarina had knocked out came out of nowhere and lunged at the startled siblings, eyes wide and crazed and blood dripping out of his broken nose.

CRACK!

The thug is knocked unconscious again by Katarina's instinct-driven punch, his nose even more broken than before.

Keith and Katarina sigh in relief, then freeze at the feeling of being watched. They slowly turn around to find a pair of fishermen - likely on their way to the dock for some night fishing- staring at them with eyes wide with shock.

"Uh, hi!" Katarina said nervously, giving an equally nervous wave. "Would you mind helping us?"


Millidiana having a talent for sword fighting is something that I've seen in other stories and I liked the idea a lot, so I decided to reference it here. Pity that she won't get a chance to show her skill cause her children already took care of their captors.

So, no one has asked this but I'm going to explain what event happen simultaneously just to make things clear.

Keith and Katarina were still unconscious when their parents received the ransom note and their friends realized that they were missing. Luigi and Millidiana arrived at the Ministry a few minutes before the harem did and had just finished telling Larna and Raphael what had happened.
Katarina and Keith actually woke up a bit before the first scene in this chapter with Larna, Gerald, and the Claes.

I hope that this makes things clearer for you if you had doubts.

If all goes well, the next chapter will be the last one but that depends on how the writing goes. Though, it might be a while before this chapter is up because I'm going to be busy preparing myself for returning to classes. Also, I want to work on some of my other stuff.
So, with nothing else to say, I'll see you next time!