『SPOILER WARNING! FROM THIS POINT ON THE STORY WILL CONTINUE WITH GOING ALONG THE EVENTS OF THE MANGA! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED』
[15/01/2046 - 3rd POV]
"They're nowhere to be found!" A demon reported.
"We speculate that they've already somehow escaped the plantation grounds." Another one guessed. "six low qualities, three average qualities, two good qualities, two high qualities, and three premium qualities! 16 in total, what an extraordinary loss!" Grandma counted.
"73584, what an unforgivable mistake on your part! Just why... this isn't like you at all! This isn't right, it's you we're talking about-" "No, this is entirely my fault, I apologize for the merchandise and their escape." Isabella interrupted.
"We've located footsteps around the north-eastern edge. Send individuals to go after the escapees as soon as possible." A demon stated, holding up their clipboard. "Inform the surrounding areas as well, we've got premium goods on the loose, and by that, I mean OUR premium goods." The demon continued.
"That is, if they're alive or not."
"Let them know that we'll to provide due compensation for turning in the goods."
。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。
As the sound of the birds chirped through the sky, Emma and the other kids were navigating their way through the large, primeval forest. "Woah!!! So huge!!!" Don said in awe. "That's what they said, hehe." Luna whispered under her breath.
While they were venturing and gazing at the sight of the big forest, Ray and Emma were acting cautious and alert, looking left and right for any signs of danger.
"Make sure to be careful! And stick together!" Emma said as she pulled up Alicia. "We can do it guys! Keep moving!" Dominic encouraged, with the other kids panting in exhaustion. "They're all so sleepy, and tired.." Emma said to herself.
"Emma! We should take a break first before continuing on through this forest!" Don suggested. "Great idea!" Emma agreed.
"Alright everyone! Let's all take a break first and eat breakfast!" Emma said happily, with the other kids cheering behind her. After that, Gilda and the other kids started to unpack their meals from their backpacks. "Make sure to not eat a lot all at once! We need to make sure our food lasts as long as possible!" Gilda stated.
"Emma, aren't you gonna eat with us?" Chris said, running over to Emma. "No thanks, I'll stand here and keep watch. So go back to eating with the others, okay?" Emma said, petting Chris' hair. "Okay!!!" Chris nodded happily, running back to the others.
"Heyo."
"KYAA A A!!!! !" Emma screamed in surprise. The scream echoed through the forest, with Ray looking confused at her. "We're fine here." Ray blurted out, with Emma looking back at him with confusion.
"For the very moment at least, there's no sign of any predators roaming around here. I couldn't fine any droppings, remains, or footprints of what could lead to a hostile being." Ray added. "Go rest, Emma, I'll go keep watch in your place." Ray suggested, giving Emma a jar of water.
Ray looked back at Emma before she went away, and looked at her bandaged ear at her left side. "I'm... sorry, Emma." Ray apologized, with Emma turning back to him in confusion.
"If I had been part of your plan from the very start, maybe you wouldn't have had to lose your ear." Ray mentioned.
"Oh, don't worry about it! I'm happy as long as your alive and well!" Emma said with a smile. "A few minutes ago, I also apologized to Anna as well, but... her response was kind of confusing." Ray said.
"Sorry about your hair.." Ray apologized. "Oh! No no! It's fine! More importantly, happy birthday!" Anna congratulated, with some of the other kids following behind her.
"I was ready to let them die, and yet, I still can't believe they're all being nice to me..." Ray said with guilt filling his voice. "Emma, I've decided, I'm going to live. I'm going to live and protect my family." Ray promised.
"I'm going to protect everyone, this time... I promise you, I won't cut anyone off." Ray finished, with Emma smiling back at him happily.
"Urghhh!!! I'm so f*cking bored!!!!" Luna cussed from the background, the two looked behind them to find Luna mumbling out of boredom. "We should be glad! There aren't any monsters to hurt us!" Emma said happily.
"That's something a casual like you would say, but for me, it's kind of boring without the demons." Luna groaned out of boredom. "So, what should we do now, Emma?" Ray asked, turning back to Emma's direction.
"We should probably find water, I saw a river nearby while we were walking. I kind of wanted to check if it was drinkable or not." Emma suggested. "Makes sense, since water is one of the things that us humans need to survive, if all goes well, we might even find food." Ray added.
'but we also might stumble upon predators too, since water is an essential to all living things.' Ray thought.
"So then, what's after that? Got a plan for where we should be going?" Ray asked. "Yep! We're heading south!" Emma answered.
"South?"
"We're going to B06-32 to find William Minerva!" Emma said, holding out the silver pen from her backpack. "Sister Krone gave this to Norman, but there's more!" Emma said, with Ray taking notice at the initials of the pen, 'W.M'
"He said that the pen wasn't supposed to be used for writing, since it had no ink of course. Try twisting it even more!" Emma suggested, with Ray twisting the pen even further to reveal a large, hologram screen that flashed from the pen.
"What the.." "LANI?!" Thoma interrupted, with his scream alerting the three. "What happened, Thoma?" Ray asked, walking over to the 7 year old. "Emma! This is bad! Lani disappeared!" Thoma said, pointing over to the spot Lannion was last seen in.
"What happened? Did he get lost, attacked? or.." "No no no! He vanished! We were walking together just a few seconds ago, but when I looked over to where Lani was, he vanished!" Thoma explained.
"Lani! Quit playing games and come out!" Thoma shouted in worry. "Lani!! Answer if you can hear us!" Ray called out. "Ray! I'm gonna look for Lani-" "No, wait, something's off, there's no response, not only from Lani, why isn't anybody responding either?" Ray asked.
"Don, Gilda, where's everyone else?!" Emma asked in a scared tone, holding onto Chris to protect him. Suddenly, Emma felt a slight tap on her shoulder, she looked behind her and saw Luna grinning back at her.
"Boo."
"KYAA!!" Emma screamed in surprise, suddenly holding Chris even tighter than before. Thoma and Ray looked back at Emma for what was going on, and saw Luna smiling mischievously as ever. "LUNA! DON'T SCARE ME LIKE THAT!" Emma retorted as she slapped Luna's arm.
"Okay okay! Don't be such a scaredy cat, Sunny!" Luna chuckled as she felt the sting of the slap's impact on her arm. "Where's Don and Gilda, and the other too? Have you seen them?" Emma worriedly asked.
"Calm down, Sunny, I haven't seen them at all, I thought they were with you guys." Luna said. "Lani suddenly disappeared, and now more than half of the kids are gone!" Emma stated. "Hm, that's definitely weird.. maybe it's just a prank or-" Before Luna could start guessing on what might've happened to their group, the floor suddenly opened on them, and soon enough, they fell into a dark pit.
"SH*T!" Luna cussed as she fell down.
"Where are we?"
"So dark.."
"ACK! I hit something!" Someone called out. "Did the ground just suddenly split on us?" Emma guessed. "And I thought plants couldn't do gymnastics." Luna said sarcastically. "Shut up, Luna." Another voice called out.
"Chris! Are you okay?" Emma asked, feeling Chris in her arms. "Yeah!" Chris answered. "RAYYY!!! THOMAAA!!! LUNAAA!!! WHERE ARE YOUUU???" Emma called out.
"ACK! A BUG!" A voice exclaimed with disgust, almost sounding like Thoma's. "Oh good, we're fine." Emma said with relief. After a few moments of adjusting the darkness below, Emma could finally make sense of what was around her, with her pupils sharpening as she tried to see.
"Are we... underground?" Emma asked. "Looks like it." Ray said, looking around the dark vines that surrounded them. "EW! EW! A BUG!" Thoma said, shooing away a moth in front of him.
"SO COOL! FINALLY! WE'RE IN DANGER!!" Luna said with enthusiasm. "I wonder, is everyone down here with us?" Emma asked. "Let's search to find out." Ray suggested. Suddenly, a small spark of light peered through the darkness.
"EMMA!!" A voice similar to Gilda's called out.
"EMMA!" Chris said, dragging Emma's hand as he pointed towards the light. "EMMA?!?!?" Another voice called out.
"GILDAAA!!!" Emma called out. She ran over to where the voices were coming from, near the light. As she came closer towards the light, she saw a few shadowed figures which were her siblings.
"THANK GOODNESS!! YOU ALL ARE OKAY!" Emma said with relief, hugging the kids nearby. "What is this place?" Ray asked, gazing upon his new and unusual surroundings. "Emma! Look at all these roots!" Chris said, running towards the plants.
"EWWW!!! BUGS! GET THEM OFF!!!" Thoma said with disgust, with Lannion laughing behind him. "These bugs and plants, the ecosystem here is nothing of what I've seen before.." Ray said, observing the creatures nearby.
"Yeah, no sh*t sherlock." Luna said as she nudged Ray with her elbow. "Alright everyone, let's all just focus on getting out of this place as soon as possible." Emma stated. She looked over to the nearby roots and tried to climb one, with the end result having it ripped from the surface.
"No good, these roots are too weak to climb.." Emma said, still gripping the ripped off roots. "It looks like it'll be way too difficult to escape this place from here." Gilda guessed.
"Let's find a different way then!" Don suggested. As the older kids were trying to find solutions on how to get out, the younger ones were busy gazing and gasping in awe of the extreme and unusual ecosystem.
"They all look like they're having so much fun!" Gilda commented, looking back at the other kids. "They were just tired a few minutes ago." Luna reminded. "It's a lot warmer in here than it is from the surface, and this will probably be for the better, since we're being hidden from the enemies above after all." Emma suggested.
"No, I really do think we should get out of this place as soon as possible." Ray insisted. "We have no idea what's waiting for us at the end of this path. We also won't have any idea on where to run if we get ambushed." Ray added.
"The forest and underground is weird too, how in the world would a god d*mn forest be able to do a split anyway?" Luna asked.
"WOAHH!!!"
"A FIELD OF FLOWERS!!!"
"AMAZING!!"
"They all look so pretty! They're glowing!" Alicia said, gazing at the flowers nearby. "They smell so good, too!" Jemima added. "So this is a dead end, huh?" Nat said. "Hey! I think we're able to climb our way out from here! I'll be the first one to climb!" Don insisted.
"Thanks! We'll leave it to you!" Emma said happily. As Don started climbing, the heard a loud scream coming from Nat, causing Emma and Ray to turn to Nat. "What's wrong, Nat?" Emma asked.
"U-Uh, look! Up there!" Nat said, pointing up at the ceiling with terror in his eyes. As the two looked up to where Nat was pointing at, they saw two corpses of what it seemed to be dried up carcasses.
"So that's why there weren't that many animals up there.." Emma said in understanding. "We're in big trouble, this place,,, this forest is.." "ALICIA! JEMIMA! RUN!" Emma alerted the two girls, with the two looking confused as they were still looking at the glowing flowers.
Before the roots could get to the 6 year olds, Emma grabbed the two away from the flowers. "Sh*t, the entrance we came from has been closed off by those roots." Luna noticed. "No way, we've been surrounded!" Don shouted.
"WHEN DID THE ROOTS BLOCK OUR PATH?!" Ray asked. "What the hell?!" Nat said with disbelief. "This is most likely where this tree feeds. The trees here live off the nutrients of live animals." Ray guessed.
"LIVE ANIMALS?!!" The other kids shouted. "A plant that lives off killing living beings?! No way.. You've got to be kidding me!!" Don said in shock.
"It must've dropped us here and lured us to it's feeding grounds." Gilda guessed. "So that's why there was a huge hole, and why there was only one path we could take. In other words, we've fallen for it's trap!" Anna stated.
"Listen, blondie, as much as I like hearing you, we got no time to address our flaws." Luna said as she looked at the roots surrounding them.
"EVERYONE! STAY CLOSE! WHATEVER YOU DO, DON'T STRAY AWAY FROM EACH OTHER!" Ray instructed as he grouped up the kids. "What do we do? Burn the tree?" Don suggested. "YOU KIDDING ME?! YOU WANNA COMMIT ARSON HERE LIKE RAY DID?!" Luna shouted.
"No, that's too dangerous, there's a high chance of us getting killed first before the tree does." Ray stated. "And the smoke of the fire might lead the enemies to us!" Gilda added.
"Emma! What should we do?!" Anna asked. "I've read about something like this before.." Emma said to herself. "Eh??" Anna asked. "Ray! This thing here is 'The snake of something something!" Emma said.
"THE HELL IS THAT?!" Luna asked. "Mr. Minerva's adventure book!" Emma said, holding up the adventure novel from the library.