ⒸⒽⒶⓅⓉⒺⓇ ⓍⓋⒾⒾ
I rub my eyes as we hike up a couple of ledges in the cave.
The younger kids cheered, it's been five days, I don't see how they have so much energy.
All I wanna do is sleep.
I thought as I rubbed my eyes once more.
"We made it!" the younger kids cheered.
"If you go up to the surface from here, you'll be right at the edge of the forest,"
Sonju commented.
"Let's rest tonight and go above tomorrow morning." he finishes.
"I'll crush the herbs!"
"And prepare the cooking!" other kids said.
I crack my knuckles and help the kids prepare food.
I glance over at Sonju, his mouth is pursed, and look at the younger kids.
You aren't that sly, I see right through you.
I thought to myself as I looked back down at the herbs I was helping preparing.
"If we work hard! We can be at B06-32 by tomorrow!" Don says.
Gilda interrupts that with a strategy of her own, then Emma asks Sonju if there are any other kids like them.
I raise an eyebrow. "You've never figured it out? Or even heard any rumors while you were traveling?" Mujika asked.
"There are many other farms out there." Sonju finishes her sentence.
"I haven't heard of any intelligent ones like your though," Sonju looks at me.
"Gracefield was Plant 3, There are other high intelligent plants, and there is only a collection in total. Gracefield. Grand Valley, Glory Bell, Goodwill Ridge, and former others." I say with my arms crossed. "There was a top class one that used to be higher than Gracefields numbers, but it got turned into enclosed housing for the farmworkers and me long ago, I was told."
"There are two different types of farms, however. The intelligent ones, like yours..." Sonju starts.
"And mass production ones." he tells them.
"Farms for cheap mass production," I rephrase. "They breed humans in horrible living conditions just to fatten and ship out like pigs" I turn to everyone.
"Humans who grow up there don't understand words."
"They have no names."
"And they don't even have free will." Sonju and I were finishing each other's sentences, I looked around.
Everyone was horrified.
Fitting expressions, I'd say.
"They would never even think of escaping," Sonju says.
"They're all hooked up to machines through the mouth." I stick my fingers in my mouth. "All the way down their throat." I pause.
"And if that tube is removed..." I take my fingers out and point to my head. "They will immediately die."
I see everyone's look of horror greatly increase after I said that.
Alright. Maybe that's enough.
I thought.
"There's over seven hundred mass production farms and only four intelligent ones."
"FOUR?!"
"THAT'S IT?!"
"Mhm." I nod.
"You can't rely on other escapees to be able to easily adapt as you all have," Sonju informs them.
"But, I do occasionally hear about theft, in which a demon steals from a farm because they want to eat humans. But that's on rare occasions." Their horrified look on their faces came back again.
I had to change the subject so they wouldn't all have nightmares that night, it would be very unhelpful if they got no sleep for our final trek to B06.
⇠⫷❖◈❖⫸⇢
As we fix up food and get ready for sleep later, I notice Ray go off by himself with the pen.
I was up practicing my magic, trying to learn the more difficult magic in the book. I shut it and walk from behind him when he was relooking at the message from Mr. Minerva.
I put my head on his shoulder with my arms around him, the magic book between my upper arm as I looked at the pen screen.
"Hi," I greeted quietly.
"Hey, what are you doing up?"
"Practicing more magic, the complicated ones have me straining to keep my eyes open."
Ray pats my head while still looking at the message.
"Why are you prioritizing magic over sleep?" he asks me, taking a short glance at my tired form.
"The destructive spells, I could try using them to fight off the demons." I shrug. "Even though it probably won't do much to them unless I hit their middle eye," I mumble in his shoulder.
"I've been getting a little better at lightning, working on trying to cast something called a Lightning Cloak-"
Ray interrupts my talking by lightly tugging my horn.
"Uck," I coiled my lips at the very odd and ticklish sensation of him touching my horns.
"You should really go to bed." He tells me, taking away my spellbook.
"Hey, wait I need that-"
He holds it up above his head. "You'll get it back tomorrow-"
I take it out of his hands with ease.
Ray takes it back and maneuvers so it'll get tedious if I keep trying to get it. So I stop.
I grumble, "Fine you win..." I rub my temples.
"Good," he cups my face with one hand, pen, and my spellbook in another.
"Now, go sleep. We have a big day tomorrow."
"Yes, mom..." I roll my eyes, I practically saunter back to where everyone else is sleeping.
Since I was up for a while, I fall right into a peaceful sleep.
ⓉⒽⒺ ⓃⒺⓍⓉ ⒹⒶⓎ
I poke my head out from the underground as Sonju climbs out.
"No pursuers. Let's go." I tell everyone as I climb out, the others follow suit.
I widen my eyes a little when I actually see what is at the end of the forest.
We came six days...
For a desert?
I lightly palm my forehead a couple of times and rub my eyes to make sure I'm seeing it right.
Yep, still a desert.
Is this seriously where Mr. Minerva is going to be?
"It's huge!"
"Look at all the space!" others say.
"If you keep going south, you'll reach your destination." Sonju tells us.
Kids gather around Mujika, saying they didn't want to leave.
I walk up to Sonju.
He looks down at me.
"You're leaving again?" he asks as if he doesn't want to believe it.
I breathed out, then spoke. "I promised Ray I would stay with them." I whispered.
Sonju scowls. "You went missing for six years, come back, and leave after six days for the human world?" he asks. "Mujika told me, but I still didn't want to believe it."
I smile sadly. "I'm sorry, but you know I'm not dead, and Mujika said we might see each other again."
Sonju huffs. "This is what I get for taking you in..." he mutters.
"I'm grateful you did, I'll forever be grateful. But I'm older now, and I know how to defeat enemies way better than when I was younger."
My eyes get bigger, "Do you believe in my abilities?"
He takes a few seconds to answer.
"Yeah, sure." he replies.
"I promise to come and find you two again, and try to bring you both to the human world."
"That won't happen." Sonju says with his arms crossed.
I put a finger to my mouth. "You never know." I smile.
I already said my goodbyes to Mujika, so now I pull out something from my bag for Sonju.
A candy cane, and a bracelet I made out of materials I found along the tunnels.
Sonju puts on the bracelet and puts one end of the candy cane in his mouth.
"One more thing," I say.
"Don't try to hunt and eat any humans while I'm gone."
Sonju looks taken aback by my statement, I look at Mujika.
"Make sure he doesn't do anything..." I look for the right word. "Rash."
She nods with a small smile.
"Bye bye. I'll see you both soon." I smile, the group was waiting for me. Mujika had given Emma a pendant that she had, an eye-shaped one. I saw her clutching it in her hand.
We only have walked a few paces, I turn around to look back at Sonju and Mujika and saw Sonju's teeth were baring a large sadistic smile as he looks to the floor.
I raise an eyebrow as I walk backwards, he sees I'm looking and immediately wipes the smile off into a stoic expression.
I point to my eyes and then him then turn back around.
Already disregarding what I told him. Alright.
"There's nothing really around here besides open land." Don comments.
"There are rocks though!" Chris says.
I kind of tune out momentarily what people are talking about as I think about how I'd bring Sonju and Mujika to the human world.
Humans can only break the promise.
I'm not a human.
But...
Emma is.
So are the rest of the kids.
"This is what I get for taking you in."
I recall Sonju telling me.
I looked back again to see them gone, as expected.
I returned to walking ahead with a smile.
Dear old Sonju,
You'll always be my favourite family member.
⇠⫷❖◈❖⫸⇢
I blow a h/l strand of hair away from my face, it was nighttime now and I just remembered that I could be doing magic now, but Ray has my spellbook.
I walk up to Ray. "Can I have my spellbook back now?"
He takes it out of his bag, "Yes, here."
I take it back and open up back to the page of the Lightning Cloak. I reread the passage on what I need to do.
"You eager to become a mage or something?" Ray asks.
"These are merely basic magician tricks."
"If their tricks used by magicians, why do they do actual lasting damage?"
Uh-
Well, that's a very good question there...
I actually don't have an answer for that.
I shrug, "I dunno."
I start with tiny lightning bolts between my fingers to warm up my hand, I then switch the book to the other hand to do the same, since I need two hands for this spell.
I practice it for the remainder of our walk.
I make sure to be in the very back so I don't accidentally hit anyone or get too close with the spell.
I curl my fingers, the spellbook open and in between one of my arms.
Once I curl my fingers once more, lightning sparks between the space of my hands.
Almost there.
I thought as I continued to curl my fingers and focus on the spell.
Ray was walking backwards from a distance watching me, I guess he was fascinated by it.
It took maybe five or six tries of intense focusing before a ball of lightning came in between my hands.
Finally!
I thought happily as I kept it there for a few seconds to stabilize the energy, making my hands shake a little.
I focus on planning to actually make the spell, I open my hands and the lightning surrounds me like it's supposed to be.
"What's going on with it now?"
I give Ray the book and he shivers a little.
Whoops, looks like a little of the spell got on the book.
He was reading the passage and closed the book again.
"It'll last a minute?" he asks. I nod.
I keep my hands the way they are as I continue to stay a little distance away from them.
Once it ends, I walk back next to Ray.
"That was pretty impressive," Ray tells me, he opens back up the book. "But it says this is two levels above Novice. Is this why you were practicing it for so long?"
I nod. "Now I can at least do one Adept spell, I'll get better soon enough. I had to practice Apprentice first before I got to Lightning Cloak." I told him.
"Mm, this is all very interesting," he comments as he keeps reading.
"Can you teach me some Novice spells?"
I smirk. "You need to achieve a special kind of tired before you pull these spells off. I stayed up a lot and missed out on sleep to practice. It's honestly kinda mind boggling and makes you want to give up if you're also not patient."
"The only reason why you probably missed out on sleep is because you don't manage your time well," Ray snorts.
"I manage my time excellently!"
"Says the girl who is about ready to turn nocturnal."
"Argh, I can't argue there..." I grumble.
He laughs genuinely and flips to the beginning of the book to the section of the Novice spells.
"Nay, Emma! What are our coordinates!" I yell over to her, some of the kids were complaining about how much longer we have.
"Let me look!" she says as she opens the pen. The words, "B06-32" flash on the screen, we all stop walking and Ray looks up from my spellbook.
"Huh?"
"Well, there's no mistaking it."
"Are you serious?"
Everyone looks around.
"But there's nothing here."
I look around, the randomly scattered rocks make me suspicious, as there is a severe lack than when we were back quite a few paces.
"Is anybody around?"
"I don't think so,"
"LIARRR!" all the younger kids shout, I listen to them rant and then catch their breath.
I look down at them. "Are you done?" I ask.
"Yeah!" they pant.
"So listen up. If Minerva is the one coming and going between worlds, it means he isn't constantly here." Ray tells everyone.
Ray continued to explain what he was doing with the pen last night, I raise an eyebrow.
Oh, I only saw him looking at the message.
I thought.
"Alright then, let's try it." I prompt as he opens the pen. He touches the owl and types in the same password, only to find an error.
I raise an eyebrow. "Give me the adventure book." I get the book and flip through the pages.
"Page 105, line 15..." I recite. "History."
Ray types it in and a map pops up.
"Huh?"
"It's a map!"
"It leads underground!" everyone scatters, I wait until something happens.
That in which, the rock I was looking at earlier started moving.
Clever. But not clever enough.
I thought as we all headed to the hatch.
I'm the first to climb down, I sniff and I get a hint of cinnamon sugar, I tune in my hearing and hear some shuffling.
I guess that's Mr. Minerva.
"Let's go. Be wary, maybe someone is here." I say as I tune out my hearing and wait for the others.
We walk through the mini tunnel which leads to something that looks like a shelter. Rooms with number plates on them.
"This is a little different from my expectations." I say to no one in particular as I brush my hand along the numbers as we pass.
I tune in my hearing and stop at a doorway, I hear the shuffles from inside and tune out my hearing.
The smell of cinnamon sugar is stronger now.
"Nay, someone's in here." I said right as the kids were about to say something about it.
I stick on my hair tuffs before kicking the door open casually.
Gotta make a dramatic entrance if we're gonna meet our savior from Satan's playground.
We are all met by a taller, gruff man with black hair and two white streaks, he has on one black leather glove and his feet are on the table, shoes beaten and battered along with a tin of cookies next to him. His outfit is mismatched and he seems to have stubble. His head is also faced down a little.
THIS is supposed to be Mr. Minerva?
What a joke.
I thought with a mental sigh as he starts speaking.
"Hey there," he pauses, lifting his head.
He has very very dark eyes. They must be pitch black with the whites of his eyes still intact.
"You must be tired after your long trip..." he sighs.
"Welcome to the B06-32 Shelter."
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fun fact: hippo sweat is red