Aravel

Chapter 57

Kaze left his room for lunch once the estimated time of an hour had passed.

While he could have left his luggage to be unpacked at night as he did not have much to bring with him and joined the rest of the group, Kaze decided to remain alone and read up the pamphlet. It was rather humorous that the dragonkin's way of providing guidance to them was through a pamphlet, which was like they were truly tourists on vacation than national guests.

Still, he heeded Luniel's advice since Kaze knew better than to not pay attention to dragonkin culture. Lunaria had already made sure of this from day 1 of school. Since they would be residing in Aravel for the next 2 weeks, it was crucial for him to get familiarized with their culture, at the very least.

Quickly, an hour flew by due to the extensive details imprinted on the pamphlet. Kaze had certainly not expected to read it for so long, though it was mainly because he took his time exploring the palace map. For safety reasons, not much was listed on the map, despite the rough outline of the palace. Other than a few mentions of places like Main Hall and the Ruler's Chambers, there were a few other additions like describing the rooms of each of their friends. Still, it intrigued Kaze to imagine what the palace would look like from the outside.

There was also the curiosity over the pamphlet given. Instead of the classical paper design that was commonly used, the pamphlet was made of a certain type of rectangular cloth not smaller than a novel size. Its texture felt smooth and silky, like super thin metal strings woven together to form the fabric. Yet, it was as flexible as any cloth and foldable while being lightweight. Kaze felt as though he was holding a few pieces of papers stacked together rather than a metal plate.

How the pamphlet worked was that it activated from the moment Kaze rolled it open. The display would appear as if printed on any paper in an illuminated manner. From what Kaze could tell, the fabric must have taken in magic particles from the atmosphere to power it, allowing for various actions to be performed according to what was encoded in it by the creator. Without needing to ask, this was definitely one of Luniel's inventions.

Moving about the pamphlet map as if he was moving a page on a book, Kaze felt both astonished by level of technology that Luniel had created and overwhelmed by the level of information he was receiving. Map aside, Luniel had said there were a few notes that required going through. Simply scrolling past the number of pages had made Kaze wonder if he was reading an instruction booklet instead. Still, he obeyed and made use of his time to look through the pamphlet.

Around lunch time, Kaze tested his recently learnt knowledge on the structure of the palace and left his room, dressed in something more casual. Thankfully, his skills of direction didn't let him down and he quickly found his way to the main atrium. From there, the guards stationed by the doors simply pointed the way for him, leading him down the right path to the dining hall.

"Ah, there you are," Sera was the first to notice Kaze showing up by the entrance to the dining hall.

"Sorry, I stayed back in my room for a light read," Kaze made a wry smile as he greeted his friends, all dressed for the occasion. "How did you all arrive?"

"After you got out, the carriages brought us straight to the palace," Yuuji explained. "Were you able to see the palace when we got here?"

"No. I was brought by Luniel in a separate carriage and ended up in a short talk with Laevia," Kaze sighed when he heard Yuuji's part. "At least you all were treated decently."

"Nothing was explained to us since we didn't have a familiar guide like you did with Luniel. We were simply led to our rooms and the... guide? Cloth? I don't know what you call this," Chris shook the pamphlet in hand as if examining a tablecloth for dirt. "Whatever it is, we found instructions on it and quickly met up using the map function."