Transmigrated as a Ghost

With the rebel's new main base well underway, the day that Marek would be meeting the king of Borealia had fast arrived, and him along with Marcus and Lyra set off.

The three of them began by running a few dozen miles away from the rebel's new main base, and then Marcus transformed into the form of a caladrius.

Except as he did this it was much harder than before, and it was taking him a great deal of effort to keep ahold of this form.

Immediately he knew why this was though, as now that he did not have the beast of the sky's memories it was just so much more unnatural to shift into.

Also, he quickly found that flying was harder, and he had quite the rocky start where both Lyra and Marek were tossed around until he got high into the air and started gliding.

Luckily once he started to get the hang of it and used the air currents to help him along things got a bit better.

Unfortunately, he was unable to go quite as fast as he used to at least for now, and stood stable at around one hundred sixty miles per hour instead of his usual two hundred plus.

Still, this was a decent speed that was far faster than most methods of travel, and allowed Marcus to avoid any sort of land based obstructions.

'I can see the fort where we are going to be meeting the king at. We are going to land around forty miles away and walk the rest of the way, and hopefully everything will go well once we arrive.' Marcus said to both Lyra and Marek with his telepathy.

Beginning his decent, Marcus misjudged his trajectory and accidently smashed straight into the ground and crashed into it. Smashing through a few dozen trees and leaving a trench in the ground before coming to a stop.

"Sorry about that." Marcus said after transforming back and looking towards Marek and Lyra.

Of course, the two of them had jumped off of Marcus' back as soon as he was about to hit the ground, easily avoiding the collision.

"It is fine, you got us here with relative ease and at a good speed. Now let us make haste. I do not want to be away any longer than I have to." Marek said as he turned towards the road and began running.

The three of them quickly made it to one of the forts that sat on Borealia's border to protect them from invasion from the south

Naturally the soldiers posted here were concerned when three figures had arrived, and security was currently incredibly tight since a certain important individual was here to inspect the fort.

However, with the emblem that the king had given Marcus, the three of them were led into the fort and brough to a meeting room where they were to wait until the king arrived.

After waiting for two hours which was a fairly long time, Marek had become especially nervous since he felt that he was in enemy territory and may have been a sitting duck that had just walked into a trap.

And when the door opened for the first time since they arrived the tension in Marek's expression hardened as he saw Knight Commander Darius walk in.

"Hm, and for a bit now I though that maybe his majesty was playing a joke on me. To think that Marek Laska would actually be asking us for help." Darius said seeing Marek sitting there.

He had a smirk on his face, and he was obviously amused by the situation, much to Marek's dismay.

"Darius, I know you have a past, but we are not here to irritate our guests. So, just let bygones be bygones for now." Aria said as she walked in.

Then after she cast a spell to make sure that the room was completely safe, Aaren the King of Borealia walked in.

"Well, it appears that everything I heard was true. You really do always get into the thick of things do you not Jed." Aaren said as he saw Marcus, with Marek and Lyra.

Sitting down at the table opposite to Marek, the king pulled out a few sheets of paper that had been enchanted and slid it over to Marek.

"Let us get right down to business. This is the contract that my advisers and I have come up with. Feel free to read it over, and if you wish to negotiate anything further, I am willing to listen. But I believe what is there is already more than fair."

Nodding his head Marek took the contract and began reading it.

However, as he read it, he was surprised to see how fair it was.

In all honesty as much as the king had said he would not be harsh to the people of Tralenstein, he had expected Borealia to want to take as much as they could while leaving barely enough for the people.

Of course, this would still be better than it was now in some areas where people had to struggle to survive and ate wild grasses for substance, but that was not what was happening.

For the most part Borealia would only be asking for thirty percent of the kingdom's gross taxes, along with fifty percent of the adamantine that was produced from the kingdom's three mines for twenty years. And this would only go into effect after three years allowing the kingdom some time to recover. 

In return they would provide almost any supplies to the rebellion, and once they had won, would enter into a formal alliance and would offer any necessary military support to combat outside forces.

'Princess Daniela shall become the new queen for ten years before abdicating the throne to her daughter Eis Borealia. Then the process of turning the kingdom of Tralenstein into a dutchy of Borealia will begin.'

Reading this a smile appeared on Marek's face, since he had actually been a supporter of Daniela before she fled from her brother's mass siblicide. 

After that he read the rest of the contract which just stated the process and rules that Tralenstein would need to follow as it became integrated back into Borealia.

Luckily, as Marek read it, he found that they had no intention of replacing any nobles in Tralenstein so long as they abided by the new laws that would be going into effect once they joined Borealia.

'For all of the bad blood between our kingdoms, the king has been incredibly fair. If our king had this opportunity, he would have drained Borealia dry of all of its resources and executed droves of their nobles as an example.'

Couniting to read the contract, Marek wanted to make sure that no little detail that might end up making his people's life worse was hidden somewhere, but everything was quite straight forward.

Though at the end he found an extra condition that looked like it had been added hastily after the contract had already been finished the first time.

This was for any unique skill orbs, mythic grade magical beast parts, and amethros ingots in the royal treasure to be handed over.

Reading this Marek winced since these were certainly the most valuable goods in the kingdom.

Still, even giving these up was a small price to pay, especially since they did not impact the average person's life at all.

'If they sit in a different vault doing nothing, it is not going to make much of a difference.'

Once he had read through the entire contract three times, he signed it, along with Lyra.

There was no need to try and negotiate since they had pretty much already discussed everything over the sending stones. And Marek could tell that the king had already put down exactly what he wanted.

"There it is done. We are now officially allies." Marek said as he slid the contract back to Aaren.

"Oh, you did not want to negotiate at all. Are you certain that this was the correct action to take?" The king said.

Nodding his head Marek said, "Yes it was the right move. Without your support our chances of winning are far less. And even if we did win somehow, afterwards we might not even be able to keep our kingdom. Once we win as long as our people our able to live better lives that is all I care about."

Smiling, Aaren took the contract and signed it as well, sealing the deal and activating the magic that now bound the two of them.

"Well now that we have finished this, it is time that you meet someone again after a long time."

The door to the room then opened and a woman with long brunette hair, a pretty face, and sharp green eyes walked into the room.

Seeing her Marek almost could not believe it.

"Princess Daniela!"

Getting up from his chair abruptly Marek moved right in front of Daniela and kneeled down on one knee.

"Your Highness it is good to see you again after all of these years. I am glad that you managed to survive, and I would like to apologize now for not being able to do more for you in the past."

Putting a hand on his shoulder, Daniela motioned for Marek to rise, and when they were face to face, she said, "There is nothing to apologize for. You did all you could, but the fact is that most of the military forces were on my brother's side. If I had stayed, I either would have died from some assassin, or started a civil war that likely would have spelled the kingdom's doom. I do not regret my choice, and I have had a comfortable life in Borealia.. I am just glad now that I have a chance to take back my home."