After an initial moment of shock thinking she was making a lame joke Henrik took a quick step back upon realizing she was dead series.
He fixed his shirt and cleared his throat to regain some composure.
"Yes, yes, of course...he is. I didn't-I'm not gay or anything, you know that right?"
Princess Ceni shrugged lightly before looking towards Salome and company, "It's your life, do whatever you want. As long as it's not him."
Henrik almost choked on nothing but air again, "L-Lady Ceni, I don't WANT to 'do' him or any other man. It's important you know that," he stated while slapping his chest in as manly a way as possible but with that dainty physique of his and looks that far surpassed most of these Princesses surrounding him, it only came off as false bravado and quite cute.
Princess Ceni tilted her head sideways, eyeing him up and down like an unhappy mother-in-law.
"Whatever you want to tell yourself to get through the night. Just remember not to touch what's rightfully mine."
*Sigh*
An audible sigh reverberated through the gloomy woods as Henrik finally accepted his fate.
"Yes, I'll remember to do that. So where is he? I need to talk to him. He is the only one that can get in touch with my cousin."
Princess Ceni's nonchalant attitude subsided for a moment. Her ears perked up upon hearing the mention of Ryfon Biric.
"Why? What's wrong?" she asked with a slight frown.
Ryfon was the primary contact for the academy who was always supposed to be keeping an eye on them from the intergalactic ship that was orbiting the planet. She didn't have a way to get into contact with him herself but the fact that he was out of reach was concerning to say the least.
It basically meant there was no one to monitor them and make sure they didn't do anything that was against the rules. And in Ryfon's absence no one could stop any of the other protectors if they went overboard, exactly how Dai Zhi had done now.
Henrik let out another defeated sigh.
"It has been almost a couple of weeks since I talked from him. I know the last person he met was Hao Xuan right before he left to clear out the area for the big fight, so I'm hoping he said something to him that could clue us in."
"Oh, the fight!" she only remembered after Henrik brought it up, "What happened with that?"
The first part of the fight was to be a large-scale battle and the second one was in groups of 4-5. (CH 527 for details)
But Hao Xuan had to go early to clear out the area beforehand and Ceni naturally followed after him. Because of everything that happened after that she had missed all of it.
Henrik waved his hand wearily, "Don't even bring it up. It was a clusterfu- Ahem, I mean it was a big mess. For the first day we went there with full preparations but both the Hall and Temple had only sent some vagabonds and vagrants to fight against us."
"Well, 'fight' might be too big of a word for what actually transpired. The native army from our side which was an army in name alone easily defeated them in the first hour or so. Stasa and others just sat back and watched as if it had nothing to do with them."
"The second battle was supposed to take place the day but no one showed up. We waited and waited until your brother ordered us to return. He said that it had been postponed due to some 'unforeseen circumstances'. He didn't elaborate more than that."
A knot formed on Ceni's forehead, "Postponed? Is that even allowed? I thought none of the protectors had any power to postpone an event that big without permission."
"That's exactly my point," Henrik snapped his fingers, "When we got back I tried to reach out to cousin but there was nothing. Well, not nothing. It was very loud."
"Loud? What do you mean?"
"I mean there was a lot of interference. It felt like someone that put up a barrier or a blockade around the entire planet that was scrambling all sorts of communication."
Ceni knew about the existence of the Hive fleet that was on the edge of the solar system so naturally, her mind went there first.
"Maybe...it's because of the hive? They had to leave the orbit so maybe it was left just in case one of them got past them?"
"No, that shouldn't be it. They left orbit a long time ago and it wasn't up then. If it is indeed a barrier, it would have been put in place sometime after that."
A curtain of silence fell over them as they both came up with various reasons inwardly. Ceni's expression turned a little sour as she came to the terrifying conclusion.
"Then, since there is no one looking over us and we can't even get in touch with them even in case of an emergency, doesn't that mean we won't be teleported out either if something goes wrong?"