Unfortunately, the Tome did not respond to my question. I was starting to get annoyed by that.
"How do you propose we do that?", Corin asked, prying me out of my spell. I cleared my throat and smiled.
"Well, obviously the same way you both got here. We teleport them from the castle, to here."
"I can't.", Alea responded, giving me a dubious look.
"What do you mean you can't? You teleported all of those people into the chamber. Just do that, but here."
She shook her head.
"It's not that simple. There's restrictions. In the first place, I do not possess enough mana to teleport every citizen. Teleporting myself alone would drain a large sum of my mana."
My mouth bent downwards as my brows furrowed.
"What? You just said-"
"I know. But it was only possible because of the God Heart. Without it, I simply cannot perform such an incredible feat. Not even the court mages of Marley would be capable of doing something like that."
"God Heart?"
"Yes, the God Heart. The dome that surrounds the castle. It's a source of godly amounts of mana that allows the Guardian to protect the Kingdom."
I thought back to the kingdom before the beam structure. The strange, massive structure with 8 spires that surrounded the castle.
"So, it's a massive mana generator. Go figure."
"What?", She asked.
I blinked multiple times.
"Well, let's just use the God Heart again then."
"We can't. Before we left, one of the spires was destroyed. We were lucky enough to be teleported here safely. I'm sure, the other spires have been destroyed already. It is simply impossible now."
"Damn it. Of course, the dragons would be so lucky that they destroyed the very thing we needed."
The scene of the dragons patiently hovering around the castle, right before the pillar of light struck flashed in my head once again.
'Wait, did the dragons know about the God Heart?'
The dragons were far too patient there, like they knew they couldn't penetrate the city's barrier until that beam struck. In the first place, seventeen dragons is far too much for such a small kingdom. That meant, this was planned.
The dragons were aware of the God Heart and city's defences and found a way to get around that, as well as make sure the Guardian – Alea – wouldn't ever be able to put up the barrier again.
"It isn't necessarily impossible.", Corin spoke up, ever the inscrutable golem.
Both Alea and I glanced at the man, hopeful. I made a bold declaration with no actual plan. Having the princess shoot down every suggestion I made was quite, demoralising. If this ass- fine gentleman- had a suggestion, I was all ears.
He started using his claymore to draw on the ground. It was a circle, within a larger circle that had eight points on it.
"Is that…"
"Yes. This is the castle, and the God Heart surrounding it."
He then drew lines connecting all the dots, then marked the point where all lines crossed.
"The dome may be called the God Heart, but in truth, it is more of a conduit. It funnels power from another source."
"An actual God Heart.", I muttered.
He nodded, then continued.
"I'm not certain where, but I do know the God Heart resides somewhere within the castle. Perhaps in a secret treasury or chamber."
"No. I think, I know where it is.", Alea interjected.
"You do?"
"Yes. I believe, I heard my father mention it once. We can get there."
'Yes!'
It was all coming together. We simply needed to get the God Heart for Alea to teleport everyone, including us, out of the kingdom, hence successfully saving everyone and hopefully finishing this arc. Although, I did find something strange.
"If the God Heart is an actual item in there, what's the point in the dome?"
The effect of my words were like deafening thunder. No one made a single peep. Both Corin and Alea were instantly hesitant to answer.
My first thought was that it was simply better to keep the item out of anyone's view. Afterall, if it was powerful enough to protect an entire kingdom, why would you want it out on display? That was like walking around with a barrel of credits and expecting to not get robbed.
But then, making such a massive dome simply for that reason sounded even more ludicrous.
"Legends tell of a king who ascended a mountain, fought a god and tore out his heart in an attempt to acquire this god's power.", Korin explained. Before I could ask a question, he continued. "But the king didn't understand that simply acquiring the god's heart didn't mean he could wield the god's power. No mortal ever could. In his attempt to do so, the king was severely crippled and transformed into a monster. Some say it was because he was cursed by the god, some say the god's power simply revealed what kind of being the king truly was. Regardless of what the truth is, no one ever attempted to use the god's heart themselves. At least, no one recorded in history."
'Oh.'
Well, that was morbid.
"So the God Heart was built to harness the power of the god's heart without killing the mortal who does so?"
Corin nodded.
'Damn it.'
A frustrated sigh escaped my lips as I rubbed my temples. Just when I thought we had something, there just had to be some crazy backstory like that to mess it all up.
"I can do it.", Alea's voice, although shaky, was surprisingly bold.
"Princess."
"No, Sir Corin. Thank you for this information. I'll do what I must once we get the God Heart. I will save the people. Although…", She turned to face me.
'Although? Why's there an although?'
In the first place, sure, I proposed this plan, but now hearing the potential consequence to Alea, I was starting to feel hesitant about it. I literally changed it so she wouldn't have to be forced to marry someone. I couldn't see how becoming a cripple or being permanently transformed was any better.
"Even if we get the God Heart, there's still a problem. I can't teleport the people to a safe place."
"Why? We just solved the power issue, didn't we?"
"Yes, we did. But this next issue is more something specific to my capabilities as a mage. I apologise for my incompetence."
"What do you mean?"
"Do you understand how teleportation magic works?", She asked.
Well, I had a fair idea of it from that one time I got scammed into buying a superhero novel instead of a Tome. That day was so terrible, but I decided to just read it instead of throwing it out.
"Yeah. You instantly move one thing from one location to another, right?"
She smiled gently, making my heart flutter at just how cute her expression was.
"Yes, that is the most basic understanding of it."
'Did I just get called an idiot?'
"Due to my low ability, my teleportation is limited to simply what and where I can see. The distance is also limited by my mana, but in this case, that is no longer a factor."
I groaned while considering what she said for a moment.
"Ok, so you can't teleport the people to somewhere far and anywhere you can see is definitely within range for these dragons."
"Yes, and I'll need to teleport them somewhere with enough food and water to feed an entire kingdom. So preferably close to an ally nation. But I cannot do that without a tether I can latch on to that location."
Again, I groaned, this time even louder. I knew it was pointless, but I just wanted my frustration to be heard loud and clear.
At this point, my mental exhaustion from this impossible situation I put myself in would kill me before my useless body did. How were we supposed to do this, if she needed a tether, which, we currently didn't have. Then, another question came to mind instantly.
"Actually, in the first place, how did you teleport all the citizens into the underground chamber? Sure, maybe you have a tether in the chamber you hooked onto, but there's no way you saw every single citizen before teleporting them. So how?"
"Oh, that's because of this.", The princess wrestled one of the tiny sapphires out of her hair net. "I ordered for sapphires like this to be given to every citizen. It was one of the orders I gave when I inherited the position of Guardian."
"What's special about those sapphires?"
"Nothing much, really. They're regular sapphires, except I imprinted my mana into them. It makes it easier to help far away citizens urgently. I can teleport anyone in close proximity to these sapphires without needing to see them."
"That's it then!", I boomed. "We just need to get one of these sapphires somewhere far enough for you to lock onto it and teleport the citizens there. It's pretty easy! Wait, damn it."
In my excitement, I failed to realise we just ended up circling back to the first suggestion, except with worse odds this time.
There was still the problem of time. I didn't have two weeks to get the safer kingdom and a lot of the citizens in the underground chamber definitely didn't have two weeks for us to get the sapphire to the ally kingdom. The old and young would most likely die from thirst before then.
And I didn't want Alea to have to marry the king of the closest kingdom, but like she said earlier, she would gladly marry the king of the nation closest by if it meant she could rescue her people. Would that count as a good ending?
'Damn it. Am I going to have to compromise here?'
In the end, I was just a fool with a big mouth.
Just then, a loud roar tore through thoughts, sending my hurt plummeting into my stomach. I quickly dove behind the trees as two massive shadows blurred by."
It was only a matter of time before some of the dragons came here. We wasted so much time coming up with a plan. That was so stupid. I didn't consider enough factors.
Perhaps, it was a bit ridiculous to have only just now come to this conclusion, but I finally understood just how truly terrifying a Tome could be. I was in way over my head.
As I laid, curled up in a ball, waiting for bright flashes of fire, I noticed nothing happened. I peeked out behind the tree and was met by Alea's disappointed gaze and Corin's indecipherable helmet.
"Fret not. The Sullied Grove is veiled by magic even far more ancient and potent than the God Heart. It would not allow something that would harm its flowers to even see it.", Corin explained, as he offered a hand.
I accepted it, blushing a bit at the embarrassing display.
As I saw the dragons fade into the distance, I felt something go off in my head. The familiar sharp pain of [Intuition] guiding me somewhere went off in my head.
"If they weren't coming here, then where are they going?"
"Dragons are not native to this region. There's not enough for them to eat here. Maybe they're flying back to their territory to eat."
That basically confirmed my theory that this was a planned assault. Someone or something was directing the dragons here.
Maybe, rather than teleporting everyone out of the kingdom, a faster method would be fixing this directly at the source.
"Where is their territory?"
"The Terrorback Mountains.", He sounded strangely annoyed, but I chose to ignore it.
"How long would it take them to get there?"
He went silent for a bit, thinking, before answering, "Three hours at most."
"Oh, that's great."
"How is that great? That just means they'll be back in six hours."
I wagged my finger at him.
"No, that just means, we can make it there quickly. I believe the dragons' assault is planned, by someone or something in the dragons' territory. If we can go there and stop it, that solves all our problems, doesn't it?"
There was no doubt in my mind that there were going to be tons of complications with that, but I felt it was arguably the simplest and fastest solution we had.
"No. It takes a dragon 3 hours to complete. It would take us a month to get there."
"Oh."
'W-What the hell? A whole month? That's even worse.'
"If only we were as fast as the dragons.", Alea muttered, staring listlessly into the already fading pair of dragons.
'If only we were as fast as the dragons, huh?'
In that moment, an absolutely absurd plan formed in my head. So crazy that I made a nervous chuckle as beads of sweat snaked down my face. I shifted my gaze to Corin.
"Hey, Corin. Have you ever wanted to fly before?",
"No.", He bluntly and sharply answered. Perhaps he was annoyed by how all over the place I'd been up to this point.
"Well, buckle up. Cause we're going to fly pretty soon."
"You have the means to do so?"
"Nope, but the dragons do."