On the third day, Annie "smoothly" reached her destination.
She had not followed that Melina's directions to return directly to Summonwater Village and enter Caelid through the Smoldering Church. Nor had she tried to circle around from the east of Marika's Third Church to the Gael Tunnel. Instead, she used Teleport directly. After several attempts at random teleportation and positioning, she finally arrived at the southernmost edge of Caelid, found the island, crossed a bridge called the Impassable Greatbridge, and successfully reached the Redmane Castle she had been looking for.
By the time she arrived, the Battle Festival was supposedly going to be held at noon the next day. Many people had already arrived, so she could more or less be considered late.
But it did not matter. She had arrived, and she was not actually late. That was enough.
"Wow!"
(⊙o⊙*)
"So this is that Redmane Castle?"
(⊙?⊙)
"It looks a little more prosperous than my Stormveil Castle..."
(o?ω?o)
For the first time, Annie gained a slightly different view of the Lands Between. She also developed the tiniest bit of fondness for General Starscourge Radahn.
That was because this Redmane Castle was completely different from the ruined Stormveil Castle and the Raya Lucaria Academy of Magic that she had previously taken over. There seemed to be excellent order here. The city and its walls were relatively intact, the residential areas still had plenty of ordinary people, and countless Redmane soldiers continued to guard the place.
If one ignored the Scarlet Rot pollution spread throughout Caelid, perhaps this really was the most normal place in the entire Lands Between?
Unfortunately, Redmane Castle's prosperity was merely its final stubborn stand. By now, all of Caelid was tottering on the brink of destruction beneath the corruption of Scarlet Rot. Without the support