Aravel

Chapter 72

After lunch, Kaze and Lunaria headed over to the lab where Lunaea and Luniel were supposedly at.

"Kaze, since this is going to be your first time at the lab, there are a few things I must let you know," Lunaria told Kaze while they traversed the streets of Aravel. "You also must not let the others know of what you see later, since there are quite a few secrets inside."

"I understand. It's a lab after all, where even princesses of the nation are working in and developed so many crazy inventions," Kaze nodded, walking by her side. "But the only reason I get to see the inside is because of needing to analyse myself?"

"I could always blindfold you to ensure absolute secrecy, but partly because you are my lover so it's about right you deserve to learn a secret or two," Lunaria admitted in a soft tone in case anyone around them overheard her. "And also because the twins insisted it themselves."

"Ah, I see. So technically I have gotten permission."

A few minutes later, they arrived at what looked to be a small house. Upon entry, Kaze had to bypass a few security measures in place with the help of Lunaria due to him being a stranger. It wasn't much, with the usual checks of weapon concealment and such. If not for Lunaria being there, he wouldn't have gotten past the security either.

They then took a flight of stairs downwards that led to a narrow corridor reinforced with concrete, something that was rarely seen due to the abundance of wood usage instead. Lunaria walked him down the corridor where they ended up to a dead end.

"Uhh, is this the lab?" Kaze asked, looking around, feeling a little lost. "I don't see anything."

Lunaria simply smiled and pulled him to stand in the middle of the dead end, which was essentially made to look like a small circular room. Once the two were there, Lunaria released her magic into the wall in front of her and instantly, magic circles filled the entire area around them. The wall in front began crumbling, as if getting disintegrated by magic while the surrounding structure held up properly without any sort of vibration.

"As you can see, security is rather tight," Lunaria told Kaze with a giggle. "I'm sorry if this spooked you, there was no way I could prepare you for what came next."

"Ahh, you could have at least said something about a crumbling wall," Kaze gulped. "What's with all those magic circles?"

"Each of them fulfils different functions. It would be too tedious to go through all of them, to be honest, so just know they work to prevent this doorway from being detected by normal means and to hold the structure up properly."

Kaze turned to the familiar voice who had just explained the workings of the magic circles to him. At the doorway stood Lunaea, who seemed to have already expected their arrival.

"H-Hope you have already eaten, Kaze... t-this might take a while," Lunaea shyly greeted him.

"We ate at the palace," Lunaria told Lunaea with a smile and patted her younger sister's head. "Thanks for the concern Lunaea."

"D-Don't mention it... this way please."

When entering the lab, Kaze was surprised that the working space was much bigger than he thought. Since the house they entered when going past the security earlier was next to a mountain, it was obvious this was located either underground or directly in another mountain nearby. As such, it would make sense that space was huge as long as they could empty out the insides enough to make space for their research.

What Kaze didn't expect was that there was no one else in the research room other than Lunaea and Luniel. The size of the research lab was simply 2 rooms big, barely bigger than the dining room in the palace. What's more, it was littered with random stuff piled up in messy heaps all over the place. Walking to the back of the room with Lunaea, it led to a separate space where things looked much neater. This was the second room that composed of the lab as a whole, which was rather surprising since Kaze figured they would need more space to work.