Luna kept her left arm beside her waist while her right hand carried her small umbrella. Then after a while, she decided to turn around as she did her best to remember which way she walked earlier.
'Maybe, I can still come back where Akiro left me to,' she thought and calmy walked.
The road she took had a few left and right turns which was enough for her to remember the right ones. "I didn't want to give up," she uttered. It was a waste if she would end up as excess baggage for Akiro. Nonetheless, it was a rare experience for Luna as she didn't get lost often in her previous world.
'There's a GPS there but there's nothing here. How inconvenient,' she thought and sighed.
Amidst that, Luna's brows furrowed when she thought that something didn't make any sense. Earlier, the place was surrounded by several houses but due to an unknown force, it became a forest. Its lush huge trees, birds singing, clear blue sky, and street with many turns ahead were all she could see. There was no human-being around for her to ask questions.
"If the forest is close to that village, then surely I should expect to see some people passing by," she uttered and ended up scratching her head in desperation even though it wasn't itchy.
Unknown to her, It was not good to be lost in an unfamiliar world especially Vermillion, the world of magic and mysteries. Even most of the natives were avoiding unfamiliar places in fear of getting lost forever or in the worst case, dying.
Then, she walked and walked but there's not a single trace of the village no matter how long she moved forward. Her legs began to wobble and her feet had also numbed.
Luna stared into her aquamarine umbrella and thought that she did not have to use it. She was not sure if it would work again as her downside would be ending up in an unknown place again. Everything might be worse than here and she didn't want to regret her decisions again.
"A-ah!" she uttered as her body suddenly met the ground. Luna went startled during the sudden fall. Frowning, she stared at her weakened legs and forced them to stand. With her hands' support, her action succeeded and quickly sat above the tree's huge trunk below the ground. It was lucky for her to find something to sit near the road where she suddenly fell.
'I should've stayed earlier,' Luna thought and placed her legs into a comfortable position above the trunk and leaned on the tree while closing her eyes.
"I can't feel my legs anymore," she mumbled with a sigh. For a person who was used to staying indoors, her stamina was not enough to maintain her body for long hours of walking without rest.
Meanwhile, even though her eyes were closed, she did not dare sleep. 'Who knew what will happen next?' she thought alarmed. She just stayed sitting for an hour until she felt her legs returned to normal. She stood up and walked towards the road.
'My feet can finally walk normally,' Luna thought while shaking her feet lightly. Then, she continued to walk and thought of positive things to calm herself.
'Come on Luna, giving up's not on your vocabulary,' she thought as her eyes squint in an attempt to see the end of the road. Until the skies above started to turn from a light blue shade to a darker shade of blue and orange.
Luna's calm face turned extremely confused.
With that, she began estimating the time. She walked away from the village for only a few minutes and walked back for about two hours and rested for an hour. It's only afternoon when they reached the West Village. It should still be around 3 or 4 o'clock now. The surroundings wouldn't turn this dark during that time.
Moreover, the crickets' noise made the already dark forest more chilling than usual for Luna.
"Perhaps the time setting here is really different. I'll really be unlucky if night's longer than a day here," Luna mumbled.
Nonetheless, another scary thought seeped through her mind. According to the books and movies she watched, the moment the skies turned dark, an ominous bad thing was likely to happen. That thought made her felt shivers down her spine.
"Oh, come on Luna, it's no use scaring yourself," Luna whispered and hugged herself because of the chilly wind grazing past her skin.
Aside from darkness, which she already feared, something dangerous appearing was the least she wanted to happen. Darkness could only scare her but that something dangerous that could cost her life was a different problem. 'For god's sake, I still wanted to live!' she thought.
Not long after, a thick fog started to form. Luna began walking at a fast pace. She wanted to leave this forsaken forest already. She breathed hard as her walks turned into runs. After that, she felt someone touched her back.
'A-ah!' she thought. She jumped in fright and didn't even have the strength to shout. Her yells were only inside her mind that failed to reach her mouth.
"Calm down!"
Luna went stunned as a familiar deep voice echoed through her mind. She hurriedly turned around and saw his usual blank face. With Luna's teary eyes, she almost jumped and hugged him. On the other hand, she prevented herself from doing so. She wouldn't want to embarrass herself any further in his eyes and thought that she's crazy weird. Her fear quickly vanished and mentally rolled her eyes at her thoughts.
"I'm truly sorry that I got myself lost and troubled you. It might delay your mission," Luna said. Of course, she knew how to apologize when she's at fault. Akiro looked the other way and sighed deeply.
"Next time, stick with me so you won't get lost. As a person who came from another world, you have that much guts to wander around alone," Akiro said.
With his furrowed brows and an angry tone, Luna shut her mouth and kept her hands on her back. However, Akiro apologized too.
"I'm at fault too for leaving you alone there. It's because I'm used to working alone," he explained.
"Anyway, this is not the right place to talk, let's go," he continued.
Luna only nodded. She remembered that they're still in this scary-looking forest and said, "W-we should really get going."
Akiro noticed her tensed expression. He bent and quickly took one of her hands and snapped his fingers. In a blink of an eye, they appeared in front of the Red Castle Hotel. Luna didn't get too shocked as his teleportation-like powers were not new to her.
At the lobby, the receptionist greeted them with a warm smile the moment they entered. As if he knew who already checked in and out, he let Akiro and Luna up the stairs while asked those that walked behind them. 'I wonder if he memorized who already checked in and out without looking on the lists,' Luna thought.
They continued walking until they reached their room numbered '4023' in silence. When they reached the room, Akiro gestured her to sit on the red comfy couch while he sat facing hers.
"I already got the wish for this task and it's quite complicated. I expect you to focus for tomorrow," Akiro said.
It caught Luna's attention. "Wish? What kind of wish," she asked.
Talking about his work, Luna didn't have a single idea of how he does his work. Seeing that it would be hard, his work didn't simply grant people's wishes in a blink of an eye like he teleports whenever he wants.
"It's about a man named John. He wished for his sister who's already dead to return to life," he answered.
Luna was left baffled. No matter how many books she read about returning to life, hearing it, in reality, is insane. 'What kind of wish is that?' she thought. When Luna saw his serious face, it didn't sound that impossible for him but how can she help him?
"T-that is quite unbelievable for me however, how can I help you? Can my umbrella help you in some way?" Luna asked.
Aside from Akiro's half powers within her, only her umbrella possessed magical abilities that only she could use.
"Your umbrella can be a help too but my powers within you can also be. If not, I wouldn't have called you here," Akiro said.
Luna frowned, hearing his answer. 'I'll practice twice or even thrice to show you that I can surely help you with all your tasks!'
"I have some plans on how to do our mission and unfortunately couldn't do it now because I have to find you first," he uttered.
"I'll get it, I won't definitely get lost again," Luna said.
Akiro shook his head. "I'm not blaming you, just stating a fact. Since it's gotten dark, we'll do it tomorrow morning. Get up early," Akiro uttered.
Luna prevented herself from exploding and thought to herself that she should prove herself tomorrow. "Anyway, how can my umbrella be of any help?" she asked.
"You're umbrella can transport us to a faraway place to escape. It would be our last resort if something inevitable happened. Furthermore, this umbrella is maybe for one-time use only. You explained that you can't use it for the second time. Like my teleportation, you need to touch the person to bring him/her with you," Akiro explained.
"Moreover, this umbrella could be your protector here in Vermillion because it brought you to a safe place just recently. Since it's the case, we can safely escape danger for once daily," he continued.
Luna was left dumbfounded by the powers her umbrella could bring. Who could have thought that her normal umbrella gifted by her mother would suddenly turn into a magical protector of her? What is it, a knight?! Moreover, after hearing about his teleportation, Luna thought of something.
"You said that it's like your powers, then yours will be better since we can teleport many times whenever we want," Luna said.
However, Akiro disagreed. He leaned on the couch and massaged his forehead. "Teleportation has its limits since my powers of time turned to half, if not, we shouldn't have used horse carriage to reach this hotel," Akiro answered.
Luna understood his explanation. She thought of his teleportation ability with his full powers.
'How convenient would that be?!'
However, she noticed a flaw and said, "We're talking too much about escaping but I don't see how you can return a dead person to life." With that, she crossed her arms and waited for his answer.
"Of course, I can't do that. I haven't known any ability that can be able to. Even if I went back to the past, I can't change her destiny. A dead person is dead," he said.
Luna's face furrowed. Her mind went into confusion once again. If he couldn't do it then his task is doomed to fail. "Then how are you planning to grant his mighty wish?" she asked and thought, 'Wasn't that man being insensible?' Luna pitied the man for his deceased sister but she soon thought that Akiro was also crazy for accepting such a wish.
Akiro remained silent.
"If you can't do that, then his wish won't come true," Luna added.
Akiro's brows immediately furrowed when he heard that however he leaned towards her and his mouth slowly grinned.
Luna avoided his eye contact.
"However, I found something interesting when I time-traveled to find out what happened to her sister," he said.
His eyes stared intently at her and his voice was deep and slow when he said those lines that made Luna startled and her mind went blank.
'What a creepy guy,' she thought.
~~To be continued....