— "Well it start when–"

Okay, now I'm going to summarize what she was talking about.

Basically, her sister, Cassandra, was next in line in the throne but decided not to and left the crown to her sister, the current matriarchal queen of Aevum.

Cassandra left her royal status to further study magic and become a witch but decided to keep in touch with her sister so as to not strain their relationship. She might seem aloof from the moment we met her but from what the queen describes her as, she's a caring person at heart.

The queen talked about how her sister knew that it's better for her to be in the throne instead of her and she was right. Aevum is currently thriving under her ruling.

— "I see... I understand. But when are we both getting released out of here?"

Leo was getting impatient now being locked up in an almost claustrophobic detention center.

— "I'm sorry for dragging this on for quite a while, you two. And yes, you both could leave now."

— "Finally!"

Right after that, we got out of the detention center and headed back to the "inn" to take a bath and go to sleep for tomorrow.

The next few days weren't really eventful. Nothing interesting was happening for the next three days of our stay in Aevum except for me continuing my job as a traveling merchant, selling wares and whatnot.

And when the fifth day had come, we both got out of the "inn" and handed back the room key before heading back to the adventuring guild to get my payment for their order request.

— "Where should we go next, Leo? After we get out of Aevum, do you have any ideas of where we should go next?"

— "I'unno, you're the one traveling and I'm just tagging along."

— "Then it's up to me for our next destination!"

After our chatter, I opened the door to the adventuring guild and walked up to the receptionist.

— "It's you two. And yes, the payment will be made today."

Before we could say anything else, she handed us a medium-sized pouch of assorted coins.

— "Fifteen gold coins, five-hundred silver coins, and two-thousand-five-hundred copper coins are in that pouch. Thank you for doing business with us again, Sir Owens."

— "Oh, you shouldn't bother with the formalities. I'm fine with being called Owens."

— "I agree, stupid people shouldn't be called with formalities."

I playfully smacked the back of his head.

— "I swear I'll leave you behind here if you keep calling me stupid, Leo."

— "Okay, okay! Geez."

We shared a hearty laugh before we turned around to leave the adventuring guild...

...But we saw her again. But this time, she has her weapon, a single rifle strapped to her back. It was bigger than her frame considering she was short albeit looking around my age but not short enough to be shorter than Leo, no, she was at least a few inches visibly taller than Leo.

She was wearing a dress with armor on her shoulder, the upper part of her chest, and the sides of her hip. The dress was colored in red with black outline. It looked like it was something a royal adventurer would wear. Some adventurers along with us in the guild were looking at her lustfully because of her small stature and cutesy appearance.

— "You two, you both saved me, didn't you? I'll have you know that I hate being indebted to people! And so I made the executive decision that I will be staying with you two!"

— "What?!"

Me and Leo were more than shocked by her taking the initiative and joining us...

...But what we didn't expect next is her showing us a contract... A contract, which I don't know what it is. It had a soft red, magic-like glow. It alone exudes power.

— "What even is that, Leo?"

I looked at him expectedly whilst he looked at the girl with widened eyes before looking at me.

— "It's a Hero's Contract, Owens! She's an actual Hero!"

Even though Leo didn't give much context, I could understand that it meant something important...

— "You're in! Please join us!"

...But out of Leo's excitement, she allowed her to join us without me even saying anything. I didn't even get a say in this!

— "Don't I have a say in this, Leo?!"

— "You don't! Just trust me, please!"

— "You know, he's right And you don't have to deny it!"

And before I knew anything, I'm already traveling out with two annoying people sitting in my carriage. The only good thing is that neither of them are touching the crates of merchandise that I'm selling.

— "*Sigh* Could you at least give me your name? You joined us without my consent first."

Silven continued going down the narrow road of the street and carrying the carriage. Leo was sitting besides me in the driving area whilst the girl had her legs hanging from the back of the carriage.

— "Minnie. Minnie Aevum.

— "So you really are a princess, huh?"

— "I am and so what?"

— "Min-Min."

Leo was not contributing to our conversation and just gave her a nickname to which she didn't like by expressing it by tugging on Leo's fox-tail.

— "Not funny, Min-Min! That hurts!"

— "Stop calling me Min-Min, then!"

— "Could you two just shut up?!"

Before I knew it again, we're back in the deep unknown of the forest once again. There's nothing more familiar than the forest trail–not that familiar with any path of any forest at all, it's just that this is everything I see now as a traveling merchant.

But my curiosity piqued when Leo didn't specify what a Hero's Contract is which got me curious.

— "What even is a Hero's Contract, Leo?"

He then turned his head to look at me. He's looking at me like I said something obnoxious or out of line. But then changed his expression to his usual annoying smirk.

— "Basically, a Hero's Contract is–"

— "Let me do it instead of you!"

She squeezed and sat in between us both much to Leo's dismay and discomfort.

— "Look where you're squeezing, Min-Min!"

She continued to ignore Leo's discomfort with her squeezing in right between us. I could feel the coldness of the steel in her armor. I'm just as discomforted as Leo at this point.

— "Just shut up, you fox!"

— "Get back in the carriage, Min-Min!"

— "I told you to stop calling me Min-Min!"

— "You two need to break it up! Minnie, just hurry it up and tell me what a Hero's Contract is!"

— "Okay. So a Hero's Contract is–"

And this is the part where I summarize another long rambling from someone.

A Hero's Contract is similar to my contract, a Traveling Merchant's contract but with the difference being she has contract exclusive spells and passives.

A contract could never be broken and the only way to get out of a contract is by ripping the contract itself which then returns the signer of the contract back to the state they were in before signing the contract, essentially weakening you physically and magically.

A Hero's Contract grants you another specialty magic element, giving you two magical affinities. Her first one before signing the Hero's Contract was wind. But after signing it, she now has a branch of fire magic, explosion magic.

A Hero's Contract might seem powerful and good but from what I could tell from her explaining, it isn't. It weakens your magic output overall and so she wields guns because the Hero's Contract doesn't affect physical weapons. And also because she could multiple her damage output by a lot using her wind and explosion magic.

Another thing is that only people with a Hero's Contract could form parties but the leader of the party is determined by who has the rarest magical and magical alignment instead of the person that initiated a party.

— "Did you get that?"

Not even lying, it took me a few seconds before I understood everything.

— "Yeah, I did understand."

But after a few good seconds of her explaining what a Hero's Contract is, Leo then tugged on my cloak.

— "Look! Owens! There's bandits in the way!"

This is why I keep my money in banks!--Oh, crap. That reminds me! I forgot to deposit the money I earned today! I can't afford to lose a lot of money to bandits!

Without us knowing, the bandits have already surrounded the carriage and placed Silven under a sleeping spell without our knowledge.

All of them wore everything in black including their scarves. All of them were also armed but none of them summoned a Mana Crystal which leads us to the conclusion that none of them could use magic and they used a sleeping powder to put Silven to sleep.

— "Now's the time to demonstrate what a Hero can do!"