Invitation

3 Days Later. Rosa's estate.

Dor dor dor.

That was the sound of FR-90 shooting on the yard of the estate. Laura was being taught on how to use the firearm more effectively. She found out that the recoil of the rifle was smaller than her heavy crossbow. Both of them were wearing a casual uniform, a white loose shirt, and black loose trousers. The princess? She was busy with her speech of apologies to the head knights across the entire country.

"If you aren't sure whether you can hold off the recoil or not, I suggest you fire at semi-auto," she said to Laura who was wearing an ear protector.

"Yes," she switched the knob on the gun and switched it to semi-auto.

Dor dor dor

The princess was going to be humiliated in front of everyone. Mainly because she lost her last authority as the leader of the Royal Guards. The estate wasn't the property of hers, but the Royal Guard's, and by the disbanding of that organization, she most likely to be stripped off from her royalty.

That was how royalty worked on this planet, wealth and power contributed a lot to it. If one is stripped from both, they would lose the royalty, no exception, even for the last princess. Life is cruel, deal with it, he thought.

Maybe not that he didn't want to care about it, but he cared more about her health. Actually, he was glad that the princess was going to abandon fighting.

Laura didn't help her much either since she was smart academically, but not mentally. All she knew was magic lessons and not practical lessons except for battle strategy which came naturally as a soldier.

Suddenly, when they were on the range, a mailman in a heavy armor came at them. He was waiting at the entrance of the estate. Gerald and Laura approached him. Laura was still holding the FR-90 in her hands.

"I beg your pardon, but where is her Royal Highness?" He asked them from the top of the horse.

"She was... Busy," Laura smirked.

"I see then, could you give her this invitation. Very please, thanks," he gave him a white letter with a red stamp on it. There was nothing suspicious from that letter except that there weren't any address there.

"What this could be?" Gerald asked as he waved his paper.

"Probably an invitation to her. Don't open it, we don't know how to do this," Laura said

"As you wish," he pocketed the letter inside his shirt and they continued to shoot the yard.

A letter of invitation was the biggest chance what's that letter could be. Maybe it was the time for them to experience flying in the flying battleship.

"How're the Royal ranks work here?" He asked Laura who was shooting this rifle.

"Glad you asked. Still, is it the right time to ask for that sir?" She asked back.

"Yes?"

"Ok, we start from the highest. The king and queen then followed by the Dukes and children of the king. If the king or queen dies, one of the children of the Dukes or one of the children of the king will replace them. They are the top of the food chain, I won't piss them off. If you attack them, it is as same as attacking the whole country.

Next is the Margrave/Marquess. They have the big lands, usually, they're a governor of a town while Duke will govern a province. Usually, the count will be their second in command. Count usually controls the same territory as Margrave or controls a lesser region.

The one that I mentioned earlier is the crazy rich royalties one. The next that I'm going to mention is the rich one, it is Viscount and Baron. Both of them had almost the same role, one is controlling a village while the other controlling a piece of land.

The last one is the knights, they're the bodyguards of the landlords and usually available in bulk. They could live in comfort thanks to their income, but they're not rich either. The plebs and the commoners are not worth mentioning."

"Is there any difference between the royalty and military rank?" Gerald asked.

"Now I love to explain this kind of thing. Ok, the royalty is officers. Other than that, they're still commoners. General has the same rank as Duke and Lieutenant has the same rank as a knight. Easy right?" Laura said as she started to shoot her PDW again.

"Are you an officer?"

"Well, yes. I'm a captain, that's the minimum rank of a mech pilot, but I believe that royalty matter more than military rank. In short, I'm only respected on military and not royalty."

"I see."

"How about you sir?"

"I'm just a regular guy."

"I found that's hard to believe."

The princess ran to the yard in panic with her bedgown. He looked at the running knight and shouted, "Wait!"

"Here's the letter your Royal Highness," Gerald gave him the letter.

She opened that sealed letter with her hands. Gerald and Laura did what they did best, didn't give a hell. Though they saw the expression on her face when she read that as if a snake fell on top of her head.

Well, she also screamed and threw that letter away. The letter must be horrible. In curiosity, Laura picked the letter up and read that.

"Well, what do you get?" Gerald took a peek of the letter from behind Laura.

"Read me read it aloud for you sir. This is a letter of invitation to his majesty wedding party on his private island. Consider this as a very important event, please dress nice and a flying ship will come to the estate. You will be served accordingly," she read that before Gerald notice there was another writing on the back of that letter.

"P.S: After I heard that the Royal Guard has been disbanded and most of its members had committed a capital crime of attempting a coup. I personally will take away your royalty, I'm embarrassed by your action of training the rebels my daughter."

"Damn...." Gerald said.

"Should we come, sir? I don't think we should, its Mrs. Rosa business after all," Laura said.

"Don't know, but I think someone must have spread a great deal of misinformation. This is just ridiculously so wrong. I don't think explaining it to the king will change anything either. This is an ultimatum. Would she come?" Gerald asked Laura.

"I prefer that she doesn't, but it's up to her,' Laura said.

Speak of the devil, Rosa came from the estate in a casual outfit. Looks like they've gotten the answer, she would come to the palace. She brought a big leather suitcase, maybe it contains her clothes.

"Do we have to come?" Gerald asked.

"We should," Laura said.

"Hey both of you, mind if you accompany me to the palace?" Rosa said.

"Hmmph, it looks like we have to come. Get a big rucksack from the Corvette, pack one set of light armor, and our best clothes. Bring a weapon too, I have a bad feeling about this," Gerald said as Laura walked to the invisible spaceship and packed things.

Inside the armory, she filled the suitcase with an L-STAR, FR-90, and two-piece of light space combat armor. She also brought the most beautiful dress that she had in the rucksack from her room in the spaceship, he also put Gerald's suit inside the rucksack. She got out of the spaceship with a suitcase on her hands.

The big 2 backpacks got thrown to Gerald and at the last minute, the flying ship came. It was guarded by knights and armored with cannons.

"Mr. Wankstein, here is your watch," Laura gave her an expensive gold watch that primary function was to contact Clarisse from afar.

"Thank you, sweetheart," he carried the princess suitcase on his hands as they embarked on the flying ship.

It was a sailing ship, maybe around the frigate class. The wood was colored white and the sail was colored white too, a symbol of royalty, he thought. It could be body assumed that the ship was used for close air support because of the large number of cannons that she has, around 50. Though, scientifically, how the hell a ship can float?

They embarked on the ship and greeted by the captain. "Good afternoon your Royal Highness, shall I guide you to the room?" The captain wasn't the ordinary-looking grandfather that you would expect, he was quite a young-looking guy.

"Thank you, captain," she said and the captain guided her to her cabin. Once they entered the lower deck, they were greeted by the strong smell of woods, it was pleasant considering the air around it was cool. Maybe there was an A/C around there, but Laura would know about it better than him.

The cabin for the princess was huge with a bed that has a curtain on it. There was a big couch for her guest. The wooden floor of the ship was covered by wool carpet. Hell, even the floor was as comfy as the bed.

'Holy hell' he thought when he looked at the red bed. 'kinda sexy' he thought. The captain was standing up on the doorway.

"Your Royal Highness, may this room suit you well," the captain closed the door slowly.

Gerald sat down on the couch and opened a hologram screen from his watch. It displayed the map, altitude, and speed, it also had a box on the bottom left corner that resembled soundwave.

"Clarisse, are you there?"

"Yes sir, I'm here."

"Could you deploy a Battlecruiser on the location that we will visit. And please turn on the stealth camouflage. And make sure the Corvette is tailing us from behind."

"Roger that sir. Clarisse out."

The speed of the ship was 30km/h and the altitude was 100.000 meters from the ground. Maybe that was the reason why this ship has an air conditioner, the cabin needed to be pressurized so they could breathe. It was 6 pm.

"Ok, what's next?"

"Probably my execution," Rosa said.

"Say what??"