Elementia Tellurian

Chapter 4

“Are you going to let her slide that easily?”

Zale emerged from nowhere with his hands in his pocket and with his scrutinizing eyes pertaining that he wanted to say something opposing to what Leed did. Leed responded to it with a glare on his intense blue eyes. He was so tired of his nagging. Ever since they were in Aqua, he always acted like he was like everyone’s older brother and he talked like a girl. The prince that everyone adores for his handsome look, intelligence, charming and kind personality was just as an annoying prince for Leed.

“Stay out of my business, Zale.”

“I am the prince of Regnum Aqua and the host of this competition, you are my business,” he looked at the four men who were behind Leed. “Everyone here are and so is that girl for she is part of the competition.” He let out a soft chuckle. “She was right, too. Why’d you bring her out here alone against five men? You were not trying to scare her off, are you? Don’t tell me,” he paused for a minute and gasped like he was in shock, “are you intimidated by her?”

Leed walked toward him and shoved his shoulder to Zale’s. The four men followed him. He wanted to grabbed Zale’s collar for mocking him but he cannot. “She’s on my way. It’s best to clean up the trash as soon as possible. She’ll only be a hindrance to me.”

The men walked out of the garden and left Zane standing there, surrounded with fragrant flowers, unamused.

“It was just the start though. How can you be so sure?!” Zale shouted enough for the men the hear it. Leed shook his head with Zale’s remark and continued walking.

~~~

Sera looked at the view from her balcony. It was a thick forest that encircles the heart of the kingdom. The heart was purposely built to be isolated from the five regnum.

“How did it go?” Joash said as he leaned on the door frame on Sera’s balcony. He did not have a chance to follow. The other competitors from Ignis kept Joash occupied after Sera went with the Aqua men.

Sera didn’t pay attention to him instead, she started climbing on the rail of her balcony to see the view beyond the forest. She stood up like it was just a normal platform for her. Her balance was just incredibly outstanding.

 “What do you think will happen next?” Sera asked, still looking at the view.

Joash shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t have any clue, either. The competition was a mystery. No one knows what would happen in the competition.  Even the past competitions were always in a discreet manner. Every challenges were spontaneous. Maybe to ensure the quality of the competition. One should not predict what will happen.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Joash said trying to get back to the topic. Sera just shook her head.

Their conversation got interrupted when someone knocked on the door. Sera and Joash looked at each other. Sera climbed down from the rails and headed to the door to see who was knocking.

A girl, who was possibly a nineteen years old, greeted Sera with a wide smile when the door was opened. She was wearing a black uniform, a house helper.

“Are you done changing to your comfortable clothes?”

She looked at Sera from head to toe. After talking to Leed and his crew, Sera went directly to her chamber and immediately changed her clothes into her tracksuit. Wearing dresses during the competition was never on her mind and it made her uncomfortable.

The house helper smiled once again. “It looks like you are done. Everyone is requested to go down to the main hall within ten minutes.”

Sera nodded in response. “I’ll be there. Thank you for informing me.”

Sera closed the door and hurriedly untie her half-up hair. She faced Joash while she was busy tying her hair into a ponytail. “We are requested to go to the main hall.”

Joash removed himself from leaning on the door frame and disheveled his hair with his hand. “Yes, I heard that. “

He walked toward the door. “I got to get going. It seems that I need to change to my comfortable clothes, too. See you down the hall.”

“Yeah,” Sera responded. She sat on her bed and put on her combat boots. It was a bit heavy but due to the amount of times she wore that she already got used to the weight. Looking at her boots she already missed doing trainings. It has been two days since she had last let her body sweat. She wanted to let her fire out.

She stood up, unwrinkled her clothes, and went to the main hall. Almost of the competitors were already there. They are all wearing their respective colors to represent their regnum.

“I saw my king, earlier.”

Sera looked at the speaker. A guy wearing a gray tracksuit approached her and offered his hand. “Hello, my name is Calyx from Meta.”   

Sera just looked at his hand. He smiled and extend it further. It took a minute before Sera extended hers. They shook hands. “My name is Sera from Ignis.” 

His smile widened and raised Sera’s hand and kissed it. That didn’t make Sera surprised but it did make her uncomfortable. “I know. I guess everyone knows,” said Calyx in amiable tone.

Sera retrieved her hand. “How can you be so sure?”

He roamed his brown eyes around the room. “I can’t see another brave woman here.” He looked at her in the eyes. “There is only you,” and he flashed another smile.

This time, Sera roamed her eyes around the room to avoid his gazed. She remembered what she said when he first approached her. “What is it about your king?” She continued roaming her eyes and she saw a group of competition approaching. Tsk, she thought. It was Leed and his crew with their blue tracksuit.

Leed saw her. He seemed to be unhappy seeing her. His smile faded when their eyes met.

“Both of you look like you hate each other.”

Sera’s forehead wrinkled and faced Calyx. “Who are you referring to?”

“Leed from Regnum Aqua. He seemed to be the strongest amongst five of them. They always tailed at him.” Calyx said while resting his chin on his thumb and acted like he was thinking.

Sera noticed the small solid black snake tattoo on his wrist but he hid it immediately when he saw her looking at it. She saw Joash entered the hall so she waved a hand to let him know where she was.  “No, I don’t hate him but I guess he does hate me. I don’t mind though.”

 When she was still in Ignis. There was always a competition between her and princess Idalia. Princess Idalia hates her so being hated was not new to Sera. 

They all faced the platform situated between the two giant staircase. All the members of the council were already up in front: Prince Zale and princess Marina from Aqua, princess Idalia and prince Theo from Ignis, princess Prairie from Terra, prince Zephyr from Aeris, and lastly, prince Primo from Meta. Everyone clapped when they saw the King from the Meta Kingdom walked to the platform as well.

Calyx nudge Sera’s shoulder with his elbow and winked at her. Giving her the ‘i-told-you’ vibe.

 The prince from Aqua, Zale, went up and smiled at them. Leed tsk-ed. Seeing Zale irritates him.  Sera thought he was a bit familiar though liked she already saw him somewhere even before the competition started. She just cannot pinpoint where. 

“It is glad to be seeing you all this afternoon and I thank the council for facilitating the breakfast earlier despite of my absence.” He stopped for a moment to breath and smiled again.

“I am happy to announce that we have here our very own king from Meta Regnum to announce what will the next activity be.”

Prince Zale stepped aside to give the spotlight to the king.  The king walked with pride in front of everyone with him dragging his floor-length gray cape that created a magnificent trail.  

“Good day, everyone. It is all good to see you here. I know you are all excited to know about what the next activity will be so I will go directly to the point. We have here five bowls of numbers for every regnums.”

He pointed five different colored bowls in accordance to the color of each regnum. “It contains numbers from one to five. All of you will be teaming up with other members from different regnums. This is how we will know how good are you with teamwork and adjusting to new people and to the environment.”

Sera and Joash looked at each other. The three competitors from Ignis went to the location where Joash and Sera were to be found. The whole room was also being envelop with chatters from different regnums.

“You don’t have to worry. You will all be given a chance to get to know your team members for two days before we will allow all of you to take off and search the forest for tasks. As of now, please get one rolled paper from your bowl and hand it to the council once you have got to take a good look on your number,” the king added.

The chatters still continued but everyone did what the king said. Everyone had managed to get their numbers and got it to the council without chaos. Sera was curious who would her teammates be? Since they are from different regnums and they had different attributes, how would they manage to work as one? What would be the different task they should work on?  How will her new team would affect her performance?

“It looks like we are on the same team,” Calyx put an arm on her shoulder when he saw his face and name appeared below Sera’s on the screen prepared by the council. He looked at her with a grin and she responded with grimace and removed his arm on his shoulder. They only just met and how can he be so casual to her? “But It looks like Mr. Leed, too.”

Leed’s name and face appeared under Calyx’s. Alistair from Aeris and Birch from Terra appeared under Leed’s afterwards. Sera search the room with her eyes to get familiar with Alistair and Birch since she had not noticed them since.

As Leed saw the screen his face got sour. He can’t believe that he would be teamed up with a girl. That girl would just slow them down, he thought to himself with a disappointment with the team result. He went to her and blocked her view because she had been searching for something around the room. “I am not glad with the result but I have no choice but to accept. You better be showing off,” he said and leave Sera without waiting for her response. 

“He really has a grudge on you. Did you do something to make him act like that towards you?” Sera took a deep breath and faced Calyx.

“You are a talker, aren’t you?”

Calyx laughed at her question. “I guess so? Already heard that before. I think you should get used to it?” he winked at Sera for a brief moment. “Since we are going to be with each other’s side for a while!”  

Sera had no other choice but to shook her head. It has never crossed her mind to be spending a lot of time with other people from other regnums than her own. It was different from what she anticipated.

“Good day, this is Zale. After familiarizing all of your teammates, you can go back to your chambers and tomorrow would be the start of your training before releasing all of you to the wild. Hope you’ll take a rest to be in good shape tomorrow. Thank you.”