The next day we met in front of the academy. Even though I had a room there I spent the night before at the mansion, since I needed to pack my things. But to be honest? There weren’t a lot of things I actually possessed. I only had the clothing I was wearing at the moment and maybe some books from the mansion, so when I turned up at our meeting point, I had nothing with me.

“What? Why do you not have a bag?” the princess asked as soon as I arrived at the academy.

“Well, what should I have brought with me? I literally don’t have any possession- oh wait, yes, I do, but that thing is under police custody.”

I was of course talking about the Grimoire. Luckily, Raynard had yet to arrive, so I would at least not have to explain that whole conversation to him.

“What have you brought with you anyway? I thought the academy was covering food expenses and the like?” I retorted.

Princess Abc stared at nothing for a moment and then replied, “Womanly stuff for women,” with a telling expression. I think I got the gist of what she was trying to tell me, so I nodded knowingly.

“But yeah, other than that, the academy is awfully generous,” she admitted.

Thing was, not only was the Grimoire my only possession, but it was also capable of storing any item I imagined. So even if I had any items with me, I would not store them inside a bag, but whatever sort of micro-dimension my Grimoire had created.

I wonder if I could just store my friends inside my Grimoire Pokémon-Style, I mused while the princess placed her handy bag in front of her feet. Of course, she was wearing the uniform of the academy, which I had yet to receive. Its bright colors weirdly contrasted with her brown hair and dark mitts.

“Maybe you should just ask Shelly about your Grimoire. Last I heard investigations on this case were closed, so there shouldn’t be any problem. Although it seems a bit off, that they would just let the only Grimoire user in the world walk around like that.”

“Yeah, about that ... what exactly is the sitch with Grimoires in general?” I asked.

“What’s the what now?” The princess was visibly confused.

“The um, deal ... with the Grimoire.” I should definitely try to tone down the pop culture references a bit.

But before she was able to answer, Raynard approached us with a cheerful “Helloho~” and after a short sprint he came to a halt right in front of us.

“Are y’all ready for our first adventure as a team?” He sounded like an infomercial host, way too confident about his product for it to be any good.

...

Well considering his initial lack of enthusiasm for this mission, this was pretty much the case.

After a couple of seconds of awkward silence, Raynard exclaimed, “Okay, let’s hope Shelly arrives soon, because I might leave out of panic,” with the same fake enthusiasm as before. Princess Abc desperately shook her head.

After a short while we heard hooves in the distance getting louder and louder, until we saw a carriage appear at the end of the street. It halted in front of the entrance to the academy where we stood.

“Have any of you ordered a carriage to bring you to the village Crema?!” an elderly woman shouted. She was sitting on the front part of the carriage, holding the reins.

“Probably?” I said with a mildly confused expression on my face. Shelly probably had ordered the carriage for us, but she was nowhere to be seen. Why a carriage? I thought cars were a thing in this world to some extent?

“Excuse me?!” she shouted, leaning towards our general direction.

“Oh no, she’s deaf,” Raynard said, his expression growing more and more tired.

“Yes, but we are not yet complete!” the princess shouted back.

“WHAT?”

“WE ARE NOT YET COMPLE- BLEGH” The princess suddenly started coughing and tried to clean her throat as she tried to communicate with the woman.

“LISTEN, IF YOU WANT TO GET TO THE VILLAGE GET YOUR ASSES UP HERE. MY HEARING IS NOT THE BEST, AND IF YOU START NAGGING, I’LL JUST DRIVE AWAY AND TAKE YOUR ADVANCE PAYMENT WITH ME!”

“Alright!” Raynard said, either intimidated or simply tired of this exchange he wasn’t even really part of. He started climbing up the back of the carriage when I said, “Take your time, if we stall a bit, Shelly might still make it.”

Princess Abc gave me an exasperated nod, and first threw her bag onto the carriage before proceeding to slowly climb onto the carriage herself. When I started getting onto the carriage I realized that this stalling strategy was not very effective, and as soon, as I took a place in the middle of the carriage, between Raynard and the princess, the old lady shouted “EVERYONE HOLD ONTO SOMETHING, IT’S GONNA BE A ROCKY RIDE!” after which she took off at a speed horses should not be able to achieve in an instant.

Actually, the departure was so sudden, I toppled over backwards, hitting my head on the wooden planks making up the floor of the carriage.

“Ouch!”

I tried to hold my aching head while also trying to not hit myself somewhere else. I made an attempt at sitting up again but decided that lying on my stomach was the best way to not fall off this hell ride. I looked outside the back of the carriage, only to realize that the bypassing scenery would make me sick, until we passed a side road in which I saw - Shelly!

We were just slow enough for me to recognize her and the panic on her face, as she tried to catch up to the carriage.

“WAIT FOR MEEEE!” she shouted while sprinting at an amazing speed behind the carriage.

“I’M SORRY THE DRIVER CAN’T HEAR YOU!” I shouted back at her.

“SOMEONE STOP THAT CARRIAGE!” Shelly screamed in an exaggerated manner that caused a lot of heads to turn in our direction. We were still in the middle of the city after all.

“Isn’t that the officer?” I thought I heard through the road noise.

“Is she chasing that carriage?”

“Are they thieves on the run?”

“Oh my god, those are criminals?!”

And I soon realized that they were totally getting the wrong idea!

“WUAHAHAHA! YES, FASTER MY BABIES!” the old hag shouted! I pitied the horses that probably endured this torture on a daily basis as long as they did not spontaneously break down. She seemed to enjoy this a lot but knowing that she was hard of hearing I figured all of her senses must have gone numb with her age.

I crawled to the back end of the carriage and extended my arm towards the policewoman hoping to heave her onto the vehicle. But I soon came to realize I did not think that idea through entirely. Because as soon as Shelly managed to grab my arm, it wasn’t her that was drawn onto the carriage, but me that was drawn onto the road.

“WOAAAAH!”

My vocal cords had gotten sore at this point, but that didn't matter, with my face slowly approaching the pavement, the result of which would not be pretty. Just as I was about to feel the most intense pain of my life, I heard the sound of breaking wood coming from inside the carriage, followed by a high-pitched shriek from Raynard and someone shouting: “MASTER!”

Raven suddenly appeared below me, making me crash into him rather than the cold stone. I landed on top of him, and we both then crashed into Shelly, who was still holding onto my arm. Dust blew up as we rolled a couple of meters down the street, earning us a lot of bewildered looks from passersby, who were not quite sure whether they wanted to get involved with this entire situation.

“Ouch,” Shelly finally said, crushed below both me and Raven.

“What was that?” I asked trying to stand up, even though pretty much every inch of my body was hurting.

“You’re one to ask,” Shelly managed to squeeze out, before saying “Get off of me!” to Raven, who quickly got up, just to check me in an exaggerated manner.

I'd call that getting even. Not that Shelly remembered.

“Master, are you alright?” he said while slowly patting my everywhere. He managed to hit all the places that hurt the most, causing me to flinch.

“Cut it out!”

“Okay, what exactly happened?” I turned around to Shelly, who was now standing and stretching herself. I was just about to reply when a loud honk made us all jump.

“Get off the damn road ya moron’s or I’ll call the police!” an angry man shouted in a dialect from the car behind us.

“I am the police!” Shelly shouted back but prompted us to leave the road.

“First of all, why a carriage? Why not a car? That old lady is crazy, she’s torturing her horses, and on top of that my butt hurts and I’ve only been driving for a minute. I’m not going to survive this ride,” I complained.

Shelly tried to speak up, but I wasn’t finished yet.

“Second of all, what are you doing here Raven? Where did you come from? I thought you weren’t allowed on this mission?”

“Okayokayokay,” Shelly was the first to respond. “This woman is literally the fastest cart driver in the history of the entire world. It would only take us two days instead of four, if we took her. And Raven, I am also really eager to hear what you have to say to all of this?” With that she crossed her arms in front of her and gave Raven an overly critical look.

“Obviously this mission is going to be dangerous!” Raven explained. “And I am not willing to let my master” – “Don’t call me that.” – “be exposed to such a danger. That’s why I hid inside a crate to be able to check on his well-being.”