Apparently, I'm the Infamous Earl's Legendary Bride

Book 1: A Girl in Another World - Chapter 24

Quinn

Aldric, Vincent, and Theo became a pill-popping trio for the next seven days during lunch breaks, and I couldn't help but smile in amusement at the sight. During this time, we traveled through the Northern Alps, and when people warned that it was dangerous, they meant it. We were accosted at least twice a day by hordes of monsters—goblins, hobgoblins, wolves, orcs, trolls, ogres, and even some giant spiders, too.

I, the useless being that I was, kept myself shut inside the safety of the carriage while Aldric, Vincent, Theo, and even Liam fought. Of course, it never took them long, and after a few days, it became more of a hassle for them. Hence, Aldric would disappear off by himself to dispatch them to the netherworld before they had the chance to annoy us and delay our journey.

I noticed, too, that as the days passed, Aldric's fighting style had become more powerful and lethal, and the time it took for him to annihilate a horde got even shorter, too. The last one took him a mere five minutes, and it was with at least one hundred orcs. I put that down to my healing him and the pills, and I was damn proud of it.

The Alps, full of valleys and steep, rugged mountain ranges, were breathtakingly beautiful. When we weren't bothered by monsters threatening to murder us, I'd admire the view. I thought that if the roads were safer and in better condition, and by that I meant the clean, smooth asphalt type back on Earth, traveling through here would be a trip in and of itself. The sight was simply amazing. Even better yet, if there was a hotel built right among the mountains with the façade facing the valley and the river, it'd be a vacation destination.

Theo, seeing me gazing off into the distance and grinning like an idiot while we waited for Aldric to finish another horde of monsters, said, "Those are volcanos. There are many of them across the Alps."

I wondered if these volcanoes were something like the ring of fire back on Earth where earthquakes and eruptions were common.

"Are they active?" I was curious.

"What do you mean by active?" Theo asked.

"As in have they erupted," I said. "You know, fire coming out and lava flowing recently?"

He shook his head. "They haven't been awake for over five hundred years, so I've heard. Though smoke does rise along its veins."

I frowned. They used the word awake when the volcano erupted. And smoke rising along its vein. I wondered if he meant underground water being heated by magma, which led steam to rise through cracks, or fault lines. Then I wondered about hot springs, and I got a little excited and asked, "Are there hot springs, Theo?"

Maria, sitting beside me in the carriage and reading a middle-grade novel, asked, "What's a hot spring?"

I said, "It's a pool of water that's naturally hot, or warm. It's usually close to a volcano."

"Ah, if you mean a smoke pool, then yes, we have those in Norsewood, though none would go near it as it is passed down that it's dangerous. Some of them smell like rotten eggs."

Rotten eggs, eh? Must be the sulfate. And yes, some hot springs were dangerous, especially when the temperature was too high or had harmful chemicals. I would have to check them out later. Who knows, Norsewood might one day became a hot spring resort destination.

Aldric returned, walking his graceful, sexy walk when he finished sending monsters off to the netherworld, and we resumed our journey.

We left the Northern Alps behind seven days after we entered it, and now we were traveling through a gentler land as the first snow of winter started to fall. Sitting in front of Aldric on the stallion, I shivered. Aldric tightened his arm around me and asked, "Cold?"