Avoiding the vicious, wild monsters that resided the dungeon for many eons, and eons to come, the couple had unknowingly avoided some nuisance and saved themselves some precious time, and energy.
Lily had said that the resting point was a special place. But regarding the truth of the claims she made—it was still in doubt since she’d only heard it from the rumors spread by some mysterious organization, and she hadn’t really come to one before.
In the end, the matter regarding the thing that she had said was all nothing but the truth without any blemishes by falsehood, at all. And since they don’t have a choice to choose from, rather than leaving Hei Long with the blood-thirsty monsters, and probably dying an unsightly, horrible death. Even if she knew the things weren’t exactly real, she would still rather made it the truth and be with him in the trouble that might come, though, that was really her point—to be with him period.
So she thought she might as well trust the rumor, and indeed she did. After they passed through the wall between the danger zone and the safe zone—or so she thought, they could feel the air changing from the foul putrid smell of a corpse, which littered the dungeon, to a freshly delightful of different kinds of floras around. When they’d got through the other side. “Finally,” Lily breathed in the surrounding air. “Some fresh air to keep me calm and steady.”
“What a fresh air,” Hei Long said. “Indeed, it also calms me down.”
They saw that wall which they had passed through had mysteriously become a colossal tree with its branches spreading wide and free throughout the place becoming a forest of its own. Small creatures like critters were roaming around, and climbing up and down the tree, and while the bird-like creatures flew over the blue sky, the fishes were swimming around the miniature falls. They were everywhere and definitely weren’t afraid of the people of the outside world as they even dared to stare at the incoming people—Hei Long and Lily. The couple stared at the weird sight before them. The residents of this particular, and peculiar place became quite as the chirping, bleating, and the bubbling of the fishes seemed to stop. Hei Long asked,” What the! The fishes can also make a sound?”
“Obviously,” she said,” can’t you hear them well?” He seemed baffled that it made Lily think, You weren’t even baffled—seeing and fighting a minotaur!
She urged him. “Let’s look and find out about this elusive treasure vault.”
“Wait,” Hei Long said,” don’t you find this place very peculiar?”
“Not much,” she said. “According to the people who were spreading rumors in the kingdom, it’s been years since they’d last heard of someone stumbled into one. They’d also said that this place was ever changing.”
“Then,” Hei Long said,” how did you know that this place is one of those things in the rumors?”
“It was said that in every dungeon—” Hei Long glared at her, then she grumbled and pouted, then she raised her hands in defeat. “—Okay, okay, I know that the rumors aren’t reliable as it sounds.”
“They really aren’t reliable, Lily,” he said. “Shouldn’t have trusted them.”
“But I—we didn’t really have a choice, don’t we? I can’t always rely on you—”
“Ohhh, can’t rely on me?” he asked, “cause I’m a stranger, is that it?”
she said, “No—no—no, you don’t understand—”
He cut her short. “Don’t worry, I understand it quite well.” Silence overcame the two of them. By the time Lily had tried to reason with Hei Long, a strong storm raged on the vast luscious forest, and the animals that were silent as a rock—whimpered, bleated, and chirped. The hairy ones scurried into their bushy bushes, some hid onto their trees, and the others hid in some holes beneath the ground. Although they may have seemed fast, in truth, some of them had failed to find a ground to withstand the strong gale. And so they lost their grounds and flew where wherever the winds had planned to take them. The anguished cries of the animals brought Agony throughout the peaceful forest. Having washed by the raging vigorous winds, the forest seemed untouched.
Time passed swiftly, calmness once again overwhelmed the forest. And the curtains of mystery hasn’t been lifted yet—but the couple will.
Hei Long held Lily in his hands, and concern overpowered the fear he felt during the calamity that had passed them.
“Ouch,” Lily said.
“You,” he said, “alright?”
“Better than ever,” she said. “But can you please unfasten your hands, it’s hurting me.”
“Sorry,” he said. Then he put her down, and he began to stick to her as close as he can fearing the mysterious force might strike at any time, and try to take her away from him, which he didn’t want to happen— not on his watch! “Don’t try to stay away from me,” he added.
“Thank you,” Lily said as she fidgets for a while, turning her head left and right.
Seeing her acting like that made Hei Long confused. “Where do you think that vile wind had come from?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I didn’t hear strong gales would come and go inside this place whenever it wants. At least not as strong as that one.”
“Oh, Lily!” he pulled her. “Look at them, they’re starting to come out of their holes.”
“T—they looked as if nothing happened,” she said.
The beasts of the wild started to go outside of their safe zone—or holes. They looked dazed and dreamy. When they saw the two strangers, they acted the same they did when they first saw the two of them. They simply stared, and stayed quiet the whole time, which weirded the two of em.
Being a veteran, Hei Long felt a prickly feeling at his back, like a needle poking at him, and screaming at him—Danger! “Let’s get out of here,” Hei Long said. “This place is not for us.”
“But,” Lily said, “the treasure might be around the corner of the place.”
“Lily,” Hei Long said, “this is not a normal place. And I don’t want to take any risk with you here—besides, do they look any normal to you?”
“If you have tried to compare the wind with these furry friends, I’m might have been convinced. But them?”
“You don’t believe me?” Hei Long asked. He caught a white-furry bunny—which he was eyeing, in the first place, because of its appearance—without any resistance, and showed it to her.
“Look at this,” he said as he heaved the white rabbit to Lily
Seeing the cuddly dazed rabbit, Lily, who had this glimmering wet blue-eyes, said, “It’s quite cute at a closer look.” She added. “Can I hug it, please?” She tried to resist the urge to hug it, but in the end, she couldn’t even wait for a moment’s time—much less, Hei Long’s permission. And so she hugged it after asking, which happened in a breeze that Hei Long can’t react to it. The rabbit yelped and struggled out of her demonic hands, but to no avail. Having failed to untie those scrambling demonic hands, the white rabbit eventually stopped struggling and crossed its arms like a pouting kid on Lily’s hands as she nudged its head back and forth, making it dizzy in the process.
Although the action it made was rather baffling in Hei Long’ eyes; on the contrary—to Lily—it just made it more irresistibly cuter.
“Cute?” he asked. “Although you have a point—but that’s not really the point here! And can you please put it down.”
“No!” She turned her back at Hei Long. “I don’t wanna put Mr. White down, and Mr. White doesn’t want to be placed down either.” Caressing and hugging the white-cuddly rabbit, she almost forgot that there was actually a man beside her in this place. She added, “What’s your point then?”
“Look,” he said, “I’ve been trying to speak with them—
“What! You can speak to them—the animals?” Although she sounded surprised, she actually wasn’t. And her eyes were still focused on Mr. White, the rabbit.
“Let me finish first,” he said. “Yes, I can.”
“Wow, but these are not animals—they’re beast of the wild, a being with a much higher level than those found in some towns. Those and these are different a matter. Although it might have been a useful ability, it doesn’t really count much here. Just a lower-tier ability, though, not everyone can have them. The thing is, maybe you can’t talk with either one of them because the level of your current ability isn’t par with the levels of these beasts…” Shock by her foresight, Hei Long became silent.
“What’s this ability level you speak of?” Hei Long asked in a very formal manner, which made Lily widen her eyes. She tugged his shoulders—while tiptoeing because the difference of their heights was shown at the moment. “You also don’t know this? Were born under a stone?”
He didn’t answer the question and shrugged his shoulders, and stopped her from asking him like—what kind of stone was it?
“What’s this ability you speak of, and can you please elaborate?”
She let Hei Long go, and it was then that she realized her rabbit—Mr. White—was gone. She yelped while turning head anxiously. “Where’s Mr. White!” Her face was turning red from screaming, and her eyes were already forming a mist. Hei Long couldn’t bear to see any of it, so he said, “At the back of that tree.”
Looking all over the place, she asked, “Which tree and which one, can you please point it out?” Seeing that there were many trees at her back, she flooded Hei Long with varying questions in which all of them can be translated into “Can you get it for me.” Feeling helpless, Hei Long scratched his head. “The one on your “very” back.” Lily cocked her head up and looked around “that” tree—which was facing her back. It was probably hundreds of years old as the trunk of it were very big that Lily had to run all around it to see if her Mr. White was hiding in the back of it. “Mr. White, where are you?” she repeatedly shouted while looking for Mr. White. Disbelieving that a creature can be so smart, Hei Long saw that the rabbit was cautious as it repeatedly circled around the tree, for some reasons, as if it knew that the Lily was the other side of the tree looking for him. Whining lowly, the rabbit looked at Hei Long with pleading eyes. Hei Long thought, “Smart, indeed!” When it stopped moving—Lily smile and grinned as she spotted a whitetail twitching from time to time and whipped from side to side. She tried to catch it. “Gotcha, Mr. White. Don’t you try to run away from me again.” Seeing the rabbit struggled no more, she smiled and the smile blew the anxious air around her. Punishing the rabbit, She said. “Bad, Mr. White. Bad.” The person, who was on the other side of her, smiled and shook his head in defeat. “You were played by Mr. White, he was playing hide and seek—that’s all.”
Awoken from her short-lived fantastic adventure from finding the mischievous white rabbit, which she called Mr. White. “What were you saying again?” With flushed face, she asked. “Sorry, hehe.”
“We’re talking about this ability thing.”
“Oh, alright—okay,” while scratching rabbit’s ears, she said. “Abilities are the deciding factor of the warriors in the empire—and in any empire to speak of. It can also either be innate or an imparted one—but most often they are innate. Although some of the ability may differ from person-to-person, some of them are still quite common that they appeared frequently from one person to another, especially for the low-tier ones.” After a long speech, she gasped, then she added. “And I think you have a low-tier, Spirit Of The Beast.”
“So, can I train it, and make it a higher grade?”
“I always think it is possible, but I haven’t heard anyone attaining such achievement.”
“How about the imparted ability?”
“Oh, that one is quite a creep’s way of giving an ability to a person.”
“Why is it?”
“I’ll tell you if you promise me that you’ll never treat your life as nothing. I know you’re strong—very strong, in fact—and you know it too. Heck! You even defeated a horde of them back there…” She paused and looked at her feet while twisting her hair around her fingers. “B-but it doesn’t mean you’ll always win a battle.”
“So you care about me?” Although he had a blank looked on his face, his heart was actually overflowing with joy and warmth.
As if her tail imaginary tail got stepped on, she fidged, and yelled in a low voice, “Idiot! Ain’t that obvious!” She proceeded forward, leaving Hei Long behind her.
Hei Long smirked as he saw her walked past him.
