Aster still wasn’t very comfortable with reverence, but he decided not to pay much attention to it. He would have to get used to it, whether he wanted to or not, so he simply put it aside.
"You may rise." I spoke calmly, but firmly.
Everyone rose at his command.
"Answer me..." I paused. "Did you already know each other?"
Everyone fell silent, unsure whether they should answer or who should do so. Then, their eyes turned toward Hugo’s back in front of them.
Hugo felt several pairs of eyes boring into his back, realizing that he was the one who should answer. He didn’t mind; as their leader, it was the right thing for him to do.
"Yes, Your Majesty!" he answered. "We were mercenaries who traveled around our world, going from kingdom to kingdom and taking jobs from guilds or rulers."
"Oh, mercenaries? Seriously?" Aster stated more than asked, raising his eyebrows.
Looking at everyone, he smiled. Perhaps a little too broadly, because it frightened all the mercenaries in front of him, including Hugo.
Hera, who was standing beside him, gave him a small elbow to the ribs. It wasn’t aggressive, but gentle, merely meant to bring him back to reality and make him stop smiling so broadly.
"Ahem." I cleared my throat as my cheeks became slightly flushed.
"Thank you." I murmured quietly to Hera.
I had gotten too excited because that news was good for me.
Because now I didn’t have to train their teamwork. And even more importantly...
I turned my attention toward Hugo, who was standing beside his lover.
’They already have a leader.’
That would save me a lot of trouble.
"Well, since you already know each other, that makes my life much easier." I spoke while thinking for a moment before continuing. "How are you feeling physically? Any fatigue? Hunger? Or anything like that?" I asked everyone.
"I’m completely fine, Your Majesty," Hugo said.
His companion, along with the others, confirmed it.
"Honestly, I’m full of energy, as if I’ve been resting for days," one of them commented, while another agreed.
Aster nodded.
"And what about you two... are you alright?" I turned my face toward my two companions.
"I’m fine, my lord. Just as they said... I’m in excellent shape." She pointed at herself, and I followed her gesture toward her body, her curves, that wide waist, and her enormous breasts that looked ready to burst out of her clothes.
’You’re definitely fine!’
I thought.
Doriana noticed my gaze, but merely blushed slightly and decided not to comment.
Seeing her slightly red face, I shifted my gaze toward Hera, who had an adorable frown on her face, practically screaming at him:
’Pervert.’
I cleared my throat again. This was becoming a habit. Then I waited for her answer.
Rolling her eyes slightly, she said:
"Yes. I’m just like everyone else."
I gave a crooked smile at her cold behavior and decided to leave her alone so I wouldn’t annoy her any further.
Seeing that everyone was fine, I returned to the next steps.
"Listen, everyone!"
Everyone fell silent, waiting for my words.
"Our situation is as follows..." I checked to make sure everyone was paying attention. "We’re stranded in the middle of a forest, in an unknown place, and we know nothing about what’s around us. The only part that has been explored is the area you’re looking at right now."
Everyone began examining their surroundings.
It was merely an open area with the fort in front of them. Everything else?... A dense forest filled with tall, imposing trees.
The forest was silent, and they didn’t know whether that was a good or bad sign.
"So, here’s the task I have for you today!" I spoke in a firmer voice. "I want a reconnaissance patrol around this area."
"Captain Hugo!" I called him.
"Yes!" He straightened his posture.
Looking at him, I asked:
"How far can you and your men travel in a day?"
"Realistically, Your Majesty... on foot, around forty kilometers a day, with breaks and at a steady pace."
Aster looked toward the sky, where he could see the translucent wall. He didn’t comment on it because this wasn’t the time. Right now, he was thinking.
’Forty kilometers a day... that’s not a bad distance, but I can’t count on it one hundred percent, since unforeseen circumstances could happen. But I can use it as a good average.’
I thought.
"Not bad... not bad at all." I said, looking at Hugo, who waited silently.
"Hugo, if you started right now, how much area could you explore?"
Hugo let out a small sigh.
"Well, Your Majesty... there’s no way to know that."
"Hm, why?" I asked, tilting my head, until something clicked in my mind.
"Ahhhh..." I scratched my hair while looking down, then pinched the tip of my nose. "Of course... I forgot about that problem." I said bitterly.
Doriana, beside me, asked in her mature voice:
"What problem, my lord?"
I looked at her and then at the sky.
"We don’t know what time it is!" I answered.
"We’re in a new world, with a time zone we don’t understand, and we can’t accurately determine the time, or even get close to doing so."
I rubbed my eyes with both hands, thinking about how to solve that problem.
"I can do that!" Doriana dropped the bomb as if it were nothing.
Aster, whose hands were still covering his face, stopped and stared at her in astonishment.
"You can do that?" I asked.
"I can!" she replied.
"How?"
That was all I said, somewhat shocked by her words.
Seeing Aster’s doubt, she smiled.
"I’ll ask the trees."
"..."
My brain went blank for a second that felt like an eternity.
"Come again?" I asked, thinking I had heard her wrong.
"I’ll ask the trees," she said, as if she didn’t care about the expression on his face.
Aster didn’t even want to know how it worked. He was afraid his brain would fry from answers containing something far too grand for his mortal mind to comprehend.
"Please, do it." I gave up and simply let her do whatever she wanted.
I watched her nod with a smile and walk toward a tree whose leaves were touched by sunlight.
She touched its trunk and closed her eyes as a bright green energy emerged from her. The energy traveled down her arm until it touched the trunk.
"Hm."
She merely made a few murmuring sounds with her eyes closed.
Everyone watched her, waiting.
The soldiers and Hugo were trying to understand what she was doing. I simply gave up and watched. Hera, however, looked as though she understood her intention.
After a few more seconds, the energy receded back into Doriana. She released the trunk and walked back toward us, stopping in front of me.
"Based on the amount of time the tree leaves have been receiving light, a little more than four hours have passed since the sunlight touched them. And, considering what is more or less normal for everyone, daylight should begin appearing around five, and by six it should be touching the leaves of this forest. So, adding that together..." Doriana paused.
"It’s approximately ten in the morning," I finished for her.
Doriana nodded.
"Approximately."
I thought for a moment. I had assumed it was later, but I still had plenty of time to work.
I turned my attention toward the beautiful Druid milf in front of me, thinking for a moment.
"When you said you were going to ask the tree... did you mean that literally?" I asked, leaning slightly forward. I couldn’t resist my curiosity.
"Not exactly." She shook her head.
Doriana thought about how to explain it, but it wasn’t that easy. It was something integrated into her, something natural, like breathing. Explaining it to someone outside her customs was difficult because she didn’t know how to put it into words in a way he could understand.
Hera, who was beside her, noticed Doriana’s difficulty explaining and decided to give her a hand.
"It’s like watching a recording," she said. "Think of it as watching a recorded video. Not literally. It’s like accessing the emotions or sensations of the trees. They don’t communicate verbally, ’most of the time,’ but they are still alive. So, they sense themselves absorbing energy, almost as if they were feeding. That’s more or less how it works. To understand it better, you need an affinity with Life and at least a basic understanding of it."
Hera used a modern Earth term for video recordings.
Aster wasn’t surprised by her talking about it. To a god, mortal technology should be something insignificant or irrelevant, something they had certainly already known about. So he didn’t pay much attention to it.
’What did she mean by "most of the time"? Well... forget it.’
Doriana looked at Hera while wondering what this "video" thing was.
’Is it divine magic? A powerful artifact?’
She wondered.
Imagine her face if she ever learned what a video was.
I looked at the other beautiful milf in front of me, thinking about her words.
"Does this work with every type of life?" I asked.
"As long as you can make direct contact, yes. Any type," Hera replied, and Doriana nodded.
"Whether it’s soil, plants, or even water, since water is also a form of life. If I can directly touch its essence, I can sense what it felt up to a certain point in the past and what it is feeling now."
Aster took a deep breath.
Understanding the basics was already enough to satisfy his curiosity.
"Well, now that we have a general idea of the time, tell me, Hugo: how far can you travel and return here before it gets dark?"
"Well, if it’s around ten in the morning, around twenty-one to twenty-three kilometers," he answered.
Aster tapped his chin, nodded, and looked at the ground until he found a small stick.
Bending down, he picked up the piece of wood.
"Everyone, come here," he called to the mercenaries.
Everyone approached him, while Doriana and Hera stood beside him.
Taking the stick, he drew a square on the ground.
"Here! This is our fort."
"I don’t want you to choose one direction and follow it in a straight line."
Aster drew a straight line in one direction.
"What I want is for you to explore the area in a spiral."
He drew a circle without completely closing it and began expanding it.
"I don’t want you to explore only one side and leave the other in the dark. I want to know everything around the fort. It doesn’t matter if you don’t explore great distances, but... I need to know everything around us, no matter how small the area..." Aster paused. "Understood?"
"Yes!" Everyone nodded.
"Now you may begin!"
"Doriana... you’ll go with them, as we agreed."
I told her, and she nodded with a smile.
"Doriana will be your guide through the forest. Treat her as your superior."
Everyone agreed.
"Doriana, before you go, could you do me a quick favor?" I asked her.
"Of course! What do you need, my lord?"
"Could you use your Earth magic, or better yet, your Wood magic, to create a partition in the living quarters? I want to divide the space between the women and the men, to give everyone more privacy, especially the women."
Doriana smiled, pleased by her lord’s concern for everyone’s well-being.
"Of course. Let’s go!"
She and I began walking toward the fort, but someone stopped us.
"Wait!"
It was Hera, who stopped and looked directly at Aster.
"Aster... I have a suggestion..."
She paused briefly.
"It could make your plan better."
....
Character art is available there.