[BOYXBOY] Dragon Prince Steals My Heart In Another World?!

Following Magic Away From the Prince?!

"Don't you think it would be best to send someone in your sted, your majesty? The woods haven't been the safest place to travel through these days."

Following Elias around became boring quicker than Andrew thought it would. They had come in from the rainy outdoors and got right to work, Elias carrying him back into the room where he had first met the mages.

"No, I would like to make this journey with a small group, possibly just myself and Andrew, if we can." Elias pointed to a map he had laid out on the large table. "This path here, it should be safe enough for us to venture through. We'll make it to the Great Lake in a day's time, which is where Greaned said we should look."

The mage Elias had pulled over to speak to eyed Andrew for a moment before speaking again. "And... You're sure that this is safe? Greaned may have told you to look there, but he also told me about the burst of magic that came from Andrew when he did his reading. It reminds me of-"

"It will be safe," Elias said sternly.

Andrew huffed, slapping his good hand on his knee before standing up from the barely cushioned stone chair Elias plopped him in. "Well, since you two are going to continue to be cryptic and argue, I think I'd like to step out for a little while." Initially, following Elias around had sounded interesting, like he would finally get to see some behind-the-scenes stuff that would give him hints about where he actually was. But so far all he had seen was Elias looking pensive, and the mage with him giving him weird looks.

"That's fine, Andrew. If you would like to rest while your hand recovers, you're more than welcome to go back to your room and lie down for a while. I will come and find you later when I'm ready to talk to you about our journey."

"Sure, sure." Andrew stood and looked down at his wrapped hand, grimacing when he tried to flex his fingers. "I'll see you later, then. Have fun looking at that weird map." From the one good glance he got of it, Andrew could tell that it wasn't a full, accurate map. It had to be partially made up past the forest because everything after that were massive expanses of land, none of them marked as names he had heard of.

There had been one place that caught his eye, though. A big portion of it had been dusted in black and simply marked as, "Unsafe". From that, Andrew guessed that the unsafe part must have been the place he had heard some of the people referring to before. Maybe their little fantasy land had to be closer to a city than they liked and they were told to treat it as some mystical, dangerous land that no one was allowed to mention or go to.

Andrew made his leave from the room, wandering down the halls aimlessly while he got lost in his thoughts.

Already he had been there for a couple of days, and he couldn't help but wonder how things back home were. He had no pets to worry about, no plants to water, and no plans he had mysteriously canceled. No one but his boss would be wondering where he had gone, and while that was fine with him, Andrew couldn't stop the empty feeling that settled in his chest.

Shouldn't someone more than that know he was gone? Maybe his neighbors noticed his mail piling up, at least. Though that sometimes just happened in apartments, and it wasn't like they could see inside of his box.

He sighed, crossing his arms over his chest. His mood had dropped and his hand still hurt pretty bad, making him wonder if he even could call his time there a vacation.

"I wish I could at least get something for my damn hand," he grumbled to himself. "If I could just get the stinging to stop, that'd be nice." Andrew brought his hand up to his face to inspect it.

Purple blotches of skin poked out from the edges of the bandages, though it didn't look like it had gotten worse from when he had first seen it. Still, if it could heal faster he wouldn't complain.