Chapter 131: Beneath the Flower
Two days passed.
For the first time since arriving in this place, the instructor’s small group finally found something resembling peace, tucked inside the strange clearing at the heart of an even stranger forest, at the center of a city that had no business existing at all.
For the first time since getting here, they had a chance to let their nerves settle. Though that didn’t apply equally to everyone.
The instructor, skeptical as ever, hadn’t fully set aside his doubts about the man.
Although Adrian appeared harmless on the surface, he knew better than to judge someone by appearances.
In situations like these, it was always safer to assume the worst than to blindly hope everything would turn out fine.
The two students, on the other hand, were adapting.
Lirien’s mood had improved, not back to her usual self yet, but the rest had done her good and it showed. Percival was Percival, a thorn in everyone’s side as always, but he had at least stopped creating unnecessary problems, or rather, he had stopped after they discovered that mana could actually be used inside the forest without drawing those strange creatures.
That had been cause for relief all around, because it meant they could finally recover at a proper pace and, more importantly, eat.
The first thing Percival did upon learning this was pull food from his dimensional storage.
It had been a reckless move that the instructor hadn’t appreciated, but when nothing happened, he chose to let it go. For now.
He was relieved by the discovery as well.
Nor did he expect to find the answer anytime soon.
Rather than wasting time thinking about it, he simply drank several mana potions, restoring his depleted reserves while treating the more troublesome injuries he had sustained.
For the first time since arriving here...
Even he was finally able to relax a little.
Even so, one thing persisted throughout all of it.
He still didn’t trust the man.
There was something off about him, he could feel it, the way you feel a storm before the sky changes. His instincts, sharpened by years of navigating genuinely dangerous situations, refused to let him lower his guard completely.
Because of that, he hadn’t touched a single one of the strange fruits.
Lirien followed his advice and avoided them as well.
One certain someone, however...
Ignored his warning as usual.
"You guys seriously need to try these!" Percival’s voice echoed through the clearing as he stuffed another crimson fruit into his mouth.
"Damn, they’re so juicy! As soon as I get back, I’m making my old man find me one of these plants."
Adrian, who had brought them here, had returned as well. He watched Percival with quiet approval, nodding along as if to confirm everything the boy was saying.
Lirien looked at the chubby boy with obvious disgust.
"At this rate, you’ll have to start rolling instead of walking."
Naturally...
Percival wasn’t about to let that one slide.
"Fuck you bitch," he said returning to eat his fruits.
"Well, more for me if you’re not having any," he said cheerfully, noting that neither of the other two showed any interest.
Night had come, or at least, it should have.
The sky here remained unchanged, the same flat non-light it always was. They could only estimate the time based on the exhaustion catching up to them, and right now every signal their bodies were sending said it was time to stop.
They had agreed, quietly, to conserve energy in case they needed to stay awake for extended stretches later on.
Lirien found a comfortable spot on a low branch nearby and settled in. Percival located a strangely symmetrical bush, covered it with what appeared to be an actual mattress he had apparently been carrying in his dimensional storage, and arranged himself on top of it with unearned satisfaction.
Adrian sat down beside the base of the great flower’s stem and closed his eyes.
The instructor stayed by a tree near Lirien’s, and closed his eyes too.
Silence fell over the clearing, thick enough that not even the blizzard raging beyond the forest’s edge could disturb it. For a long moment, nothing happened.
Then movement.
Adrian opened his eyes.
He turned them slowly, one by one, Lirien, Percival, the instructor. All still. All quiet. He confirmed they were asleep.
He rose without a sound.
He walked toward the giant flower with measured steps, like someone who had walked the same path countless times before. When he reached the wide stem, wrapped in dark vines that pulsed faintly, he extended a hand toward a specific point. His fingers found something invisible to the eye. He pressed.
The vines began to move like living things, shifting and curling until they formed an opening wide enough for an adult to pass through.
Without the slightest hesitation, Adrian stepped inside.
The opening remained.
The clearing fell silent once again.
The instructor opened his eyes.
He had kept his mind alert the entire time. He had known from the beginning that Adrian wasn’t telling the whole story, and he had never fully lowered his guard in the man’s presence. It seemed that had been the right call.
’Let’s see exactly what you’re up to,’ he thought, rising quietly and moving toward the opening that was still there.
Beyond it he could see a tunnel, dug diagonally into the earth, wide enough for a person, not particularly deep.
From where he stood, he could already make out what appeared to be the other end roughly ten meters away.
After a brief moment of hesitation...
He stepped inside.
With every step, the air grew denser.
Warmer.
It carried an indescribable presence that made his instincts scream at him to turn back.
Yet... He continued forward.
In a few seconds he reached the end.
What opened before him was a wide underground Cave, silent and still, its walls of compacted earth giving off a sense of density and solidity even from a distance.
But that wasn’t what drew his attention.
The cave was largely empty, save for one thing.
At its center stood what appeared to be a crystal, deep crimson, roughly the height of a grown adult. Numerous roots were attached to it, coiling around it at various points before extending upward into the ceiling above. He understood immediately that they belonged to the flower.
’Where the hell did that guy go?’
He was still trying to make sense of what he was looking at, and figure out where Adrian had disappeared to, when a voice filled the space.
"I knew you’d follow me."
A figure stepped out from behind the crystal, and as the crimson light caught his features, they became visible.
Adrian.
"If you had listened to me from the beginning," he continued, with the tone of someone reciting an explanation they had given far too many times, "and behaved yourself, I wouldn’t have had to resort to this."