The Royal Military Academy's Impostor Owns a Dungeon [BL]-Chapter 874: Travel Advisory

Coaxed and gently convinced into what could very well be classified as death-defying exploration, one normally objective Imperial crown prince found himself following along as his little wife nudged him forward with undisguised excitement.

Xavier could not quite bring himself to tell Luca that maybe this wasn’t a good idea.

Not when he remembered that freedom had never truly been something Luca possessed.

Even now.

While Luca had escaped the chains that once bound him back in Tesseris, absolute freedom still eluded him here.

Always having to think of where and when to go, second guessing movements because they could impact so many people. Luca had all those things to think about instead of just enjoying his life after already working so hard.

Instead of simply living, Luca had been forced to calculate.

And what made it worse was that, of all people, Luca could have been the one completely untouched by the Empire’s problems. With his abilities, his resources, and his dungeon, he could have lived freely and comfortably.

Yet instead, he worked harder than anyone else.

He carried burdens that were never meant to be his.

And now, here he was. In the one place where he genuinely felt safe.

And Xavier was considering stopping him?

That thought alone made him feel mildly ashamed.

Not very husbandly of him, huh?

Xavier let out a silent sigh.

His mindset shifted.

Instead of thinking about restraint, he chose something else.

Protection.

He would follow. He would stay close. And he would make sure Luca stayed safe.

That was all.

Unfortunately, he had no idea how quickly that internal vow was tested.

__

When Luca said edge, he truly meant edge.

And they got there by quite literally flying over.

Yes.They actually flew there.

In their current corporeal state, no less.

Normally, movement inside the dungeon was effortless for the two of them. They could simply appear wherever they wished. Distance was meaningless and power walking was optional.

But this time, Luca had advised against simply porting over.

And judging by his unusually serious expression at the time, it was advice born from experience.

"It’s actually possible to travel like usual while we’re like this," Luca said thoughtfully. "But there’s a risk of scattering about."

"Scattering?" Xavier repeated.

Luca nodded earnestly.

He paused, clearly debating how to explain it.

How did one even explain something like leaving small pieces of one’s consciousness behind because they had gotten a bit too attached to the spiritual network of a place? Or noticing, sometime later, that those bits were still there, quietly minding their own business, even though he had already gone elsewhere?

Luca wasn’t sure if the explanation would be enough, but even so, he tried.

Then again, while inconvenient, it wasn’t truly dangerous. Eventually, everything would return to normal.

That was his conclusion based on personal experience, at least.

"So sometimes," Luca continued brightly, "parts of your consciousness can get distracted. You might stay attached to the network even after moving somewhere else."

Xavier’s expression went very still.

"But in the end, it’ll be fine," Luca added quickly. "It can just be a little unsettling for first timers, so I think it’d still be better if we travel manually instead. It shouldn’t take too long!"

He looked rather pleased with his explanation.

Thankfully, and entirely unbeknownst to the enthusiastic explorer, Xavier had already developed a set of personal rules when it came to interpreting his wife’s words.

First, Luca generally wouldn’t lie. And considering that the little chipmunk would rather play dead than lie outright, it was never particularly difficult to tell when something was being deliberately withheld.

Second, on the rare occasion that something was being withheld, it was important to distinguish whether it was a genuine secret or merely a surprise.

Third, for actual secrets, patience was key. If time passed and there were no signs of distress, there was no need to press. But for surprises, especially the kind accompanied by eyes that sparkled every time Luca looked at the person involved, it was best not to poke at all. Otherwise, his little wife would crumble under the pressure and he likely wouldn’t be able to properly present whatever he had worked so hard to prepare.

Fourth, Luca wasn’t the type to play mind games. If anything, he was literal to a fault. So unrealistically literal, in fact, that everyone else often drove themselves mad trying to interpret words that were, in truth, completely straightforward.

And precisely because of that fourth point, the fifth one mattered the most.

Life was not fair.

It sounded generic. It sounded unrelated. And yet it neatly covered every edge case Xavier had learned to anticipate.

When Luca said something would be fine, it usually meant that Luca would make it fine. It might involve a revive pill or two, but it would, by his standards, be fine.

For anyone else, however, it would absolutely not be fine.

After all, who else carried revive pills so casually? To begin with, who else would even have such pills?

And when Luca said something was possible, the same way he had said it during discussions about the Expo booth, it usually was. It simply required absurd conditions, divine intervention, or a rearrangement of reality.

Oh, but make no mistake, it would be possible.

With those rules firmly in mind, Xavier could reasonably conclude that attempting to teleport in their current state would likely end in death for anyone else.

As for Luca’s assurance that it wouldn’t take too long, that was probably true as well. It just meant that it would require considerable effort, which Luca rarely acknowledged as such because his personal scale of difficulty had always been wildly skewed.

More often than not, he was simply unaware that what he considered normal would qualify as a struggle for everyone else.

And that could hardly be Luca’s fault, considering he likely didn’t even register such a trivial thing as a dent.

Which, unfortunately, became very apparent to Xavier during their excursion.

While he could survive traversing the air, he had not expected to encounter such resistance when they finally reached the suspected edge of the dungeon space.

Open water stretched out before them.

"Here?" Xavier asked, hesitation creeping into his voice.

Even now, this was an area they had never properly explored. With everyone constantly occupied, no one had ever had the time to venture this far.

Apparently, Luca intended to change that today.