"Okay guys, look at this."
This is for the first time that all of the guardians: Kim Myungwoo, Cho Bonhwa, Kim Minseong, Lee Daesun, Kim Minsook and even the princess Kim Sungmi are present to do the training together. They are enjoying chocolate from the bottle while staring at Cho Bonhwa who is standing in front of them. He shut his eyes and frowned hard - he still looked handsome even though he was doing that - and like a magic - yeah it's magic - he suddenly turned into a large rabbit. Cho Bonhwa is gone... that hare must be him. It has snow white fur with long ears and long hind legs.
"Princess, you said he's gonna turn into a rabbit?" asked Daesun while clapping his hands, "but he is a hare!"
"I remember he was a rabbit. But yeah maybe he is growing up?" Sungmi laughing.
Myungwoo feels relieved to see Sungmi is laughing since she looks a bit stressed out lately. The hare - Bonhwa - is hopping around them and making everyone laugh.
"But I have a question," said Minsook in between his laughs - he laughed the loudest, "how to communicate with Bonhwa hyeong if he is in hare form? I mean he does understand us, right? But how to understand him? Let's imagine we are in a dangerous situation and need a quick talk. Does he need to turn back into human and to hare again just to talk with us?"
"That's a nice critical question, Minsook. That's why we have Minseong," answered Sungmi, "ready to show us your training result, Minseong?"
"I'm itching to try it in real life, princess," answered Minseong.
Minseong steps forward to the hare before kneeling in front of it - or him.
"Bonhwa hyeong said he feels weird to be a hare - yet feel comfortable at the same time."
"That's really cool. So Minseong really has this ability," compliment Myungwoo.
"Zoolinguist - that's how we call those who can understand animals' language. With more practice, Minseong would be able to understand almost all animals' language whenever he wants to listen to it. His world will be so noisy if he can listen to everything, right? He will soon control it better."
"He talked with a dog a long time ago in his childhood. I thought he was just imagining it... but we really found the owner of the lost dog."
"I'm still talking to several animals after that but I never tell hyeong," said Minseong while giggling, "I'm afraid hyeong will freak out."
"I'm glad you didn't tell me."
"Now you can turn back, Bonhwa, or you'll get tired."
Then in just a second, they can see Bonhwa is standing in front of them again. A broad smile placed on his face, he must be so proud of his ability just now.
"Then for the next session, shall we see how the Combat ability works again?"
"Time for the princess to show off?" asked Minseong while laughing, then sat again beside Minsook.
"If you think the contrast element can't work together, that's totally wrong. Let's see how Myungwoo combines his power with Minsook. It won't be easy so I won't blame you if you two can't produce it at the first time, but it is worth trying."
Myungwoo exchanged glances with Minsook before they stood up and casually stepped into a big bubble in front of them, that's where they usually do their training - either training for individuals or groups. Sungmi waves her hand and suddenly the bubble is transparent for the audience.
"I will control it from here!"
Suddenly, in front of Myungwoo and Minsook, several ghosts appear. Myungwoo is getting sick of imps so he asked Sungmi to upgrade their training enemy into another one - Sungmi gives them ghosts because they ever fight with it already.
"Get ready! Light and Darkness Guardians, Combat Attack!" Sungmi raised up her morning star.
Myungwoo and Minsook automatically moved their weapon - the ax and staff hit each other and formed the X letter in front of them.
"Illusion Attack!" they screamed together.
Two rays of light - white and black color - formed from their weapon and flowed in the air like two colored snakes then it surrounded those five ghosts in front of them before covering them until they couldn't see their whereabouts anymore.
"Illusion Attack - the enemy will be trapped in illusion and confusion. In the illusion world, there are mirrors surrounding them and if they can't find their way out of the world, being panicked and ending up attacking the fake shadow in the mirror, they will die. It's a very powerful magic and only the talented and calm one can produce it - or get away from the world. I think they managed to combine their power. We need to wait for a while more..."
"Oh? Oh? What happened?" screamed Bonhwa while pointing to the scene in front of them.
Suddenly they can see the ghosts - it's not five of them anymore - but three ghosts. Minsook looks shocked while Myungwoo quickly attacks the rest of the ghosts.
"Come on, Minsook!" screamed Myungwoo to awaken Minsook.
Then Minsook just realized he must attack too, so he raises up his staff and mumbling weird language before a lightning bolt flying from his staff and attacks the last ghost. The big bubble pops out suddenly after they finish the mission. The other guardians clap their hands as Myungwoo and Minsook sit with them again.
"What happened princess?" asked Myungwoo in confusion, "I thought our combat attack was successful."
"Don't worry Myungwoo, it's a very powerful magic so I can understand both of you can't produce it perfectly at the first try. But at least it attacked two of them. It's not bad!"
"They just need more practice, Princess?" asked Minseong while giving Myungwoo and Minsook more bottles of chocolate.
"And princess, you said there is something you wanna tell us after the practice session? And you said it's so important?" asked Daesun.
"Right, thank you for reminding me about that, Daesun. Actually, I already found out how to lock the Darkness Lord one more time without sacrificing your own life."
"We are ready to listen, Princess," said Bonhwa.
"But it needs all of you to do an adventure. In this mirror world, there are five countries. Look at this."
Sungmi waves her morning star to the sky and they can see a big map with five different colors to mark the land.
"We are here, in the red color. This is our country, people mention us as the Guardian Country since all of the guardians were from our country. The nearest country in our north and east is this green and blue color. The green one is Fred Country, the blue one is Skye Country. While in our west and south are all oceans... this purple in the far west is Wagner Country and in the far south is Darcy Country. Each country has their castle and a king or queen is the lord of their land. And they have a magic ball full of energy as their ancient weapon. If you can borrow the magic ball from them, you can lock the Darkness Lord once again."
"In other words, do you suggest we have an adventure to every place here to assure them to lend us these balls?" asked Minsook, "it must not be that hard if we explain to them why we need these balls, right?"
"No. it is that hard, Minsook, sadly. Because not all of the lords will eagerly lend you their magic balls. Once you borrow their balls, the defense power of their land will be decreased by half and they need extra power to protect their country. No matter how hard you explain that you need this to lock the Darkness Lord again, some of them are too... cowardly and selfish, they just wanna protect their own land and people more than participating in the bigger picture."
"So, it will be hard for us to reassure the lord..." Myungwoo mumbles by himself.
"Another obstacle is the distance isn't that close as you see in the map, it's not as smooth as a road, you need to pass through forest, river, small village, you will encounter more creatures in your adventure too. And you need to do it fast before... the evil guardians obtained the balls."
"Don't say that the evil guardians also know about this?" asked Minseong in shock.
"They do, Minseong. Or they will. I don't know how many evil guardians are left now, I remember I failed to catch the General. He is the one who knows a lot. If he already awakens the other evil guardians... I guess he will let them know soon about this."
"Then... any suggestions from you, Princess?" asked Bonhwa.
"Darcy Country," said Sungmi while pointing to the orange land in the far south with a red light from her morning star like showing a presentation, "has a very good relationship with our country. I know their lord well so I think we better go here first. The ocean might be dangerous and we'll cross the ocean with ships so we will easily get attacked, but the land itself doesn't have too many dangerous creatures, as I remember."
"Princess will join us?" asked Daesun, "is it safe to leave this country?"
"Don't worry, Daesun. As long as I'm not dead yet, I still control some creatures to protect this country. You'll see them near the border. We just go to Darcy Country first before planning for the next one."
"When will we go? What should we prepare?" asked Myungwoo.
"Let me look at the situation first. While we have time in the adventure and your condition isn't too tired, you still can do a training session, I can provide that for you. And I'll bring several mirrors with me. Like you guys have mentioned before, it's your save spot."
"Princess, I've been curious about this," asked Bonhwa, he is frowning, "what if the mirror you bring gets destroyed?"
"Then your save spot will be the mirror in our castle."
"That might be so far from our last save spot!" complained Minsook faster than Bonhwa.
"That's why you guys must remember to protect the mirror you bring. And also the safety of your body in your world."
"It sounds like a really hard task," Myungwoo is mumbling again.
"Ah, it's so refreshing!"
Bonhwa is the first person who gets off the bus followed by the other XTREME ART's employees. For 5 days and 4 nights, the company will hold a get together event for all of the employees. In this event, there are some training schedules, but also game time. Around 70 employees are joining this event. What makes this event a regular event every year and all employees like it is because it's free of charge - with plenty of food available all paid by the company - and always held near the beach. This year, they visited the Gangneung area. Myungwoo steps beside Bonhwa and takes a deep breath too.
"Good location, Cho Sajangnim," compliment Myungwoo.
Then a girl from the personnel section comes and gives everyone two pieces of paper: it's about the rundown and room arrangement.
"Why don't they let us sleep together," complained Bonhwa.
"Come on Sajangnim, it's a get together so we should mingle with everyone too, right?"
Myungwoo read the paper. His roommate is Gam Hyunki from the developer team - but still a part timer since he is in his last year in university - which is not bad. This kid is a bit hyper, but aside from that, he is really okay.
"Kim Bujangnim!"
Myungwoo just finished thinking about him when the person appears - tall and handsome, and super cheerful, that is Gam Hyunki, a genius who produces some of the XTREME ART's top games. He is very creative and Myungwoo heard some information about Hyunki - he is quite popular in social media and university because of his look.
"We are in the same room!"
"Let's take care of each other well then?"
"Let's go to our room first!"
"Hey you..." complained Bonhwa, "they left."
"WOW IT'S COOL IT'S COOL IT'S COOL!"
"WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY?"
Minsook stares at his phone then suddenly stands up and makes the owner of the room, Choi Kichul, get distracted from the work on his laptop. Kichul is Minsook's best friend since their high school even though Kichul is one year older than Minsook. Kichul is a tall handsome man who is working as a freelance sound director while finishing his last year in the university. Now he stares at Minsook's phone too.
"I got an offer to become one of the behind the scenes of THE TOP project featuring model Bang Minjoon and Kim Sunyoung," said Minsook, still can't believe the text he received.
"That's crazy. You must've gotten a high payment for that too."
"I'll treat you to eat meat this weekend, hyeong. I'll go there only on Wednesday. But the payment for this one day is this much..."
Kichul gasps as he reads the text.
"You must stay there for a full day. Let me pick you up at 9 there then because you must be tired."
"Thank you, hyeong. You won't be busy that day?"
"Well I just need to meet Doha hyeong to talk about my last project but I guess it won't take that long. Once again, congratulations!"
Myungwoo is being dragged - again - by the cheerful Hyunki, as if he is never tired. Since they become roommates, Hyunki is dragging him here and there to follow the schedule of their get together. Myungwoo doesn't even have much time to spend with Bonhwa except when they are having lunch or dinner.
"May I sit here?"
"Oh yes, of course."
Hyunki keeps on talking about his idea to produce a new fantasy-based game but Myungwoo's thought has been drifted away by the person who sits with them during dinner time. Myungwoo wanna ask Bonhwa about her but he keeps forgetting about it.
"Oh right, I must haven't introduced her to you guys. She is Kang Sikyung, a famous photographer who is my friend, so that's why she agreed to spend time as our photographer in this event. I pay her not too cheap though," Bonhwa said while laughing.
"Are you teasing me oppa? Hello everyone, I'm Kang Sikyung."
She is bowing to Myungwoo and Hyunki. Suddenly Hyunki stopped talking.
"Oh, I know who you are. I ever heard about you. You even go to some popular events overseas, right?" asked Hyunki.
"Well, yeah that's me."
"And she is older than you, Hyunki."
"Oh my gosh, can I call you noona then? I'm Gam Hyunki."
The two of them shake their hand.
"Oh, and Sikyung, this is Kim Myungwoo, the marketing manager," Bonhwa said, then lowering his voice, "the best manager we ever had."
"That's too much, Cho Sajangnim. Nice to meet you, I'm Kim Myungwoo."
Sikyung is smiling and shaking hands with Myungwoo too. She is pretty, Myungwoo thought. She has a tall slim body with wavy black long hair. Her pretty face is one of a kind. Myungwoo blinks. It's not the right time to be daydreaming, especially while staring at her like that. Stupid Myungwoo.