The early morning atmosphere inside the Lunode household was cool and completely silent.
Chrites stood in the center of his bedroom, smoothly zipping up his durable canvas travel duffel bag.
The highly anticipated Sunday morning had officially arrived, bringing a welcome pause to the grueling daily physical training at the military academy.
Leaving his standard uniform coat hanging neatly inside his wooden closet, he dressed in comfortable, highly practical civilian clothes—a simple dark shirt, reinforced trousers, and sturdy boots perfectly suited for a week-long operational deployment.
Before securing the final latches on his luggage, Chrites paused.
He reached down to his desk and picked up his plain black sword.
He carefully inspected the flawlessly polished steel, ensuring the edge remained absolutely sharp and ready for any unforeseen shadow business.
Satisfied, he wrapped the scabbard securely in a thick layer of protective cloth, placing it horizontally at the very bottom of his duffel beneath his spare clothes.
Stepping out the front door into the crisp dawn air, he found his older brother already waiting in the driver’s seat of their idling civilian sedan.
Chrites walked around to the passenger side, opened the door, and dropped his heavy bag onto the floorboards before sliding into the seat.
**SLAM!**
The door clicked shut, and his brother shifted gears immediately.
**VROOM!**
The engine purred smoothly to life as they pulled away from the quiet neighborhood curb, merging seamlessly onto the wide, multi-lane highway.
The designated military departure spaceport was located exactly fifty-eight kilometers away from their home property, requiring a steady, uninterrupted drive across the sprawling outer coastal transit bridges.
As they cruised along the open highway, watching the early morning mist clear from the horizon, his brother glanced over to ensure Chrites fully understood the strategic parameters of their journey.
“Let me go over the explicit ground rules and history of this deployment while we drive,” his brother instructed, keeping a steady hand on the steering wheel.
“As you already know, the Glovis kingdom and the Cebel continent have maintained a highly stable, deeply cooperative alliance for decades.
However, our two landmasses do not touch each other anywhere on land.
We are separated entirely by massive, incredibly deep oceans.
Because those waters are highly treacherous and expansive, taking a specialized high-speed military flight is the only viable way to travel between our borders.”
His brother smoothly navigated a wide bend on the elevated coastal pass.
“Because our continents are such deeply connected allies, this joint military operation is essentially a grand public showcase of mutual trust and strategic harmony,” his brother continued explaining.
“Command wants to guarantee that our respective military forces can execute joint ground warfare and combined logistical actions seamlessly.
To build this operational integration from the ground up, the defense councils explicitly invited newly recruited individuals—fresh rookies and military juniors who have just recently joined the armed forces, rather than standard academy students—to participate in the primary planning phases.
Your job as an invited civilian analyst is to process the raw logistical routing for these incoming rookie units so our command division operates flawlessly.”
“I understand the objective,” Chrites replied calmly, resting his arm against the cool glass window.
Covering the remaining fifty-eight kilometers with expert driving, the sedan finally cleared the heavily fortified outer checkpoints of the military spaceport.
His brother guided the vehicle into the secure long-term parking sector reserved for operational staff.
**SCREECH!**
The tires halted smoothly against the reinforced pavement.
Grabbing their respective bags, the two brothers exited the vehicle and walked briskly through the towering automated glass doors of the primary military departure terminal.
Inside, the expansive departure hall was bustling with active defense personnel, automated cargo loaders, and digital schedule monitors.
Standing near the central operational check-in desk were Kieran and Derrick, looking incredibly sharp in their pressed field fatigues.
Standing directly alongside them were two more of his brother’s old college friends—specialized officers assigned to the communications vanguard.
“Has anyone else from our group arrived yet?”
“Not yet,” Kieran answered, looking up from his digital manifest with a welcoming nod.
“We are still waiting for your academy division friends to clear the outer civilian security gates.
Boarding procedures begin shortly.”
“Traffic on the western transit loop looked slightly delayed on the monitors,” Derrick added, casually leaning against a polished pillar.
“They should be along in a few minutes.”
The group stood together near the massive observation windows, engaging in light, comfortable conversation about flight vectors and atmospheric currents over the ocean.
A few moments later, familiar voices echoed clearly across the terminal floor.
Class Division Four had officially arrived.
Rivb led the group, carrying an incredibly oversized travel backpack, closely followed by Chrono, Shevy, Melise, and Linease.
“We made it!” Rivb announced loudly, grinning eagerly as he jogged up to them.
“The security scanners at the entrance took forever to verify my snack supplies, but we are officially ready for deployment!”
Before Chrites could formally introduce his classmates to the adult officers, a deep, heavy vibration violently shook the reinforced glass walls of the terminal.
**RUMBLE!**
Outside the primary drop-off lanes, an elite security convoy consisting of approximately twelve heavily armored military vehicles pulled up in a flawless, synchronized defensive perimeter.
The heavy doors of the central transport opened, and Vaelora stepped out onto the pavement.
Dressed in a highly elegant, custom-tailored travel coat, she walked into the terminal surrounded by professional bodyguards, immediately capturing the absolutely shocked attention of every soldier and commander in the room.
Kieran’s jaw physically dropped.
Beside him, Derrick and the two communication officers stiffened in sheer, unadulterated astonishment.
Grabbing Chrites securely by the shoulder, Kieran and Derrick pulled him quickly behind a row of automated ticketing kiosks for a highly urgent, secret men’s talk away from the rest of the group.
“Are you completely insane?!” Kieran whispered frantically, his eyes wide with absolute disbelief.
“Who is she to you?
Why is the direct daughter of General Korrigan—the absolute peak Legendary Master of our continent—arriving here for a basic logistical operation?
Is she genuinely just your ordinary friend?”
Chrites let out a quiet sigh, maintaining his perfectly simple-minded civilian act.
Speaking softly, he explained the entire proposal narrative to the officers—recounting how Vaelora had pulled him aside to confess her love, how he had bluntly refused her romance to focus entirely on his analytical work, and how they had ultimately agreed to attend this deployment purely as ordinary friends.
Hearing that Chrites had actively rejected the direct daughter of a god-tier military commander left the adult officers standing completely paralyzed with awe.
“You actually refused her,” Derrick muttered under his breath, shaking his head in absolute disbelief.
“Your sheer, unbothered confidence is absolutely terrifying, kid.”
With the initial shock settling down, the loud automated terminal speakers announced that boarding for their long-distance transport craft had officially commenced.
The group reassembled, presented their secure identification credentials to the gate staff, and walked down the heavy metallic boarding bridge.
Stepping through the thick, circular exterior hatch, Chrites observed the highly impressive interior of the military flight craft.
Unlike standard commercial airplanes, the cabin was a highly reinforced fortress of advanced magical engineering.
The curved walls were constructed from dark, solid metallic bulkheads, lined continuously with glowing blue runic arrays that perfectly stabilized the internal atmospheric pressure.
Rows of heavily padded, secure tactical seats faced forward across the wide central aisle, equipped with multi-point safety harnesses.
Overhead, exposed mana conduits hummed with dense, highly controlled energy, feeding directly into the primary magical propulsion drives located at the rear of the vessel. Read the latest chapters at novelping dot com.
The entire group found their assigned seats in the central section of the pressurized cabin.
Chrites slid his heavy duffel bag securely beneath his seat, fastening his reinforced harness buckles.
**CLACK!**
The heavy exterior airlock hatch sealed completely shut.
A few moments later, the specialized mana engines ignited with a deafening, raw roar of power.
**WHOOSH!**
The massive military transport craft launched smoothly into the sky, accelerating rapidly over the open coastline.
Because the two continents were located incredibly far apart across the treacherous waters, the flight required several hours of sustained cruising at extreme, high-altitude speeds.
During the long flight, Chrites simply closed his eyes, resting his mind in silence while his friends chatted quietly over the steady, ambient hum of the mana drives.
Hours passed in a smooth blur until the internal cabin runic arrays shifted to a soft green glow, signaling their final descent.
The transport craft banked smoothly, breaking through the dense southern cloud layers of the Cebel continent.
**THUD!
SCREECH!**
The landing gear touched down perfectly on the reinforced runway of the secure Cebel command base.
The primary engines spun down into a low, quiet hum, and the heavy side hatch hissed open, letting the fresh, cool air of the foreign continent flood the cabin.
Disembarking from the impressive flight craft, the group gathered their heavy bags and stepped into the private military arrival hangar to relax while the commanding officers finalized their base security clearances.
Seeing Chrites sitting on a metal bench near his duffel bag, Vaelora walked over with a bright, deeply affectionate smile.
She reached into her secure carry-on luggage and carefully pulled out two polished, insulated homemade lunch boxes.
“Chrites,” Vaelora said warmly, extending one of the beautifully prepared lunch boxes directly toward him.
“I know the long flight across the ocean was exhausting.
I made this lunch box specifically for you by enduring the whole night.
I spent the entire night awake cooking and assembling the ingredients perfectly.
It was a really, long task to do, but I wanted to make sure you had a wonderful homemade meal the moment we arrived.”
Chrites looked up, genuinely surprised and pleased by the massive effort.
“Oh, thank you very much,” he said happily.
Accepting the polished container, he unlatched the lid and eagerly began eating the delicious food right there in the hangar bays.
Standing just a few feet away, Linease watched the entire scene unfold.
Seeing the distinct look of pure happiness on Chrites’s face as he enjoyed Vaelora’s cooking caused a sharp, sudden feeling of intense jealousy to flare up inside her mind.
She kept her outward expression completely blank, refusing to say a single word out loud as she stood completely still.
Noticing Linease standing quietly nearby, Vaelora turned with an elegant, friendly smile and offered the remaining food container to her.
“I brought plenty of extra food, Linease,” Vaelora offered kindly.
“Would you like to eat some of this lunch with us?”
Linease took a small step back, shaking her head smoothly.
“No, thank you,” Linease denied politely.
“My stomach feels a bit unsettled from the long flight landing.
I really do not want any food right now.”