Part 1
"I should have gone with her..."
"Evlin..."
Inside of the further right path, Evlin in her golden-winged form and Gustav in his winged-centaur form were proceeding deeper into the tunnel.
"W- What if she gets lost? Or hungry? What if she encounters a monster?"
"Evlin..."
The leader of the group was starting to panic a little bit worried about leaving her older sister by herself in such uncharted territory.
"She's never been by herself before!! And she's never been a dryad before!! She's never been a dryad by herself before!!!"
"... Evlin..."
Gustav was trying really hard to calm her down but the griffin girl couldn't stop thinking of what could possibly happen to Ashley without her by her side.
"We need to go back! I'll go back and look for her!!"
"EVLIN!!!"
"What!!??"
Gustav at that moment pointed at his own head.
"Telepathy."
"... Oh... Oooooohhh!!! That's riiiight!!! Call her!! Call her right now!!!"
"Evlin relax, Ashley is not a vase made of glass, she won't break just because you left her side for two seconds..."
"R- Right... You're right... She's probably fine..."
"Good, now, calm down a bit, I'll connect all of us to see how we are progressing."
"Ok... Thanks Gustav!"
Gustav closed his eyes to try and focus to reach everyone and connect them inside his telepathic link.
[Everyone, this is Gustav and Evlin... How are you all progressing?]
[Hey Gustav, Auren here... Me and Ria are entering the nest of spiders right now. They don't seem to realize our presence so far but in case anything happens we have our shields ready.]
[Spiders... So many spiders...]
[Huh... Auren, is Ria ok...?]
[She will be fine once we leave this place, don't worry.]
[If you say so... Daren, Lilith, you two together?]
[W- W- What do you mean together??? Why would we be together??? We- We-]
[Lilith calm down... He's just asking if we didn't separate ourselves in the maze by accident...]
[Oh... R- Right...]
[Did... Did something happened with you two...?]
[Everything is fine Gustav, we are just a little stressed out due to the maze being so long... We will keep going and let you know once we are out...]
[Understood Daren, good luck!]
"Everyone seems to be ok so far Evlin..."
"I see... What about Ashley?"
[Ashley, this is Gustav... Can you hear me...?]
[...]
[Ashley...? Ashley!!]
[Huh...? Oh! Hey Gustav! Something wrong...?]
[We are trying to update each other on our situations. Are you ok?]
[I'm fine... Just still trying to look into the memories of the dryad... Is everyone out of the tunnels yet?]
[The others seem to already have reached the most dangerous parts of their tunnels... They should be reaching the exit soon.. Have you found the garden yet?]
[Almost, Drya is teaching me how to be a proper dryad so we got a little distracted. We should be out soon.]
[Drya...? Ashley who is Drya??]
[The dryad... She's helping me traverse the tunnel faster by sharing shortcuts and telling me how to use her body.]
[The dryad is talking to you??]
[Yeah... She's honestly kinda nice once you get to know her... Say hi Drya.]
[Stop wasting time and keep moving!! We don't have all day!]
[... Ok maybe she's not that nice...]
[Ashley!! You can't befriend a demon! These things are dangerous!]
[Don't worry, she won't let me get hurt as long as I have her body. Everything is fine.]
[But, Ashley!]
[Gustav I need to focus right now, talk to you later.]
[Ashley!!]
[...]
"..."
"Gustav...? What's wrong? Did something happen to Ashley!!!???"
"... I think... She became friends with the dryad..."
"... Ahem... Wha...?"
"Your sister... It seems that the plant girl is talking to her... I could hear her voice in the telepathic conversation... The dryad is inside her mind."
"What!!??? Wha... What does this mean???"
"She said that the dryad is helping her to deal with the tunnel with more ease by teaching how to use her dryad body."
"She... She's teaching my sister how to be a demon???"
"I... Think so...?"
"I need to find her... I need to find her right now and change her back to normal!!"
"Evlin wait! Ashley said the dryad won't harm her since they share a body right now. She is probably not in danger."
"'Probably'?"
"Well... I can't say for sure... I have never been in a situation like this before..."
"Ugh... Let's just get out of this tunnel... I want to see my sister soon..."
"Let's..."
The two continued to run across their path and finally reached the bottomless pit that Ashley mentioned. It was an extremely wide area engulfed in darkness. Evlin picked a small piece of rock and threw it into the hole to see how far it would go.
Her and Gustav tried to stay quiet to hear the noise of the rock but nothing came out even after several minutes.
"Seems like it would be quite the fall..."
"I can't even see the other side... Can your earth magic make a bridge all the way there?"
"No problem... Thanks to Sphinx, I have more magic energy to channel than I could possibly need."
Evlin aimed her crossbow towards the ground and started to focus an enormous amount of modeling magic on its tip. She then released it all in one go and a wide bridge was created that extended itself halfway across the pit.
"Impressive!"
"Eh... Not really... I was trying to reach all the way to the end... This pit is bigger than I imagined..."
"Can you reach the end with your magic?"
"Probably, but I need to reach the end of the bridge to extend it."
"Very well, let's move on then."
The two stepped inside the unfinished bridge very carefully to confirm if it was stable. After entering with their full bodies and trying to make some more risky movements they realized that there was nothing to fear.
"It seems like the bridge is safe. Nice work Evlin!"
"Thank you poney-man!"
Part 2
They began to walk across the bridge and every time they would reach the end Evlin would channel more modeling magic to increase its size. She assumed she would need to do this two or three times but this pit just seemed to never end.
Even with Sphinx's extra magic supply Evlin was starting to get tired from using so much magic to create a stable bridge for her and Gustav.
She finally could not take it anymore and fell on her knees.
"Arf... Arf... Gustav... Stop..."
"Evlin? What's wrong?"
"Arf... Arf... I think me and Sphinx are out of magic... We need time to recharge..."
"Recharge...? Doesn't that usually take the whole day?"
"Only if we are separated... But if we are fused together we can double the rate at which our magic recovers..."
"That's... Still twelve hours..."
"Don't worry, I don't need all of my magic back... Just enough to finish the bridge... Just... Just give me some time..."
"Maybe you should try to sleep a little..."
"NO!!!"
"...??"
"I- I can't go to sleep..."
"W- What...? Why not...?"
"..."
"Evlin?"
"Because... If I do... Xadi will contact me again... Him and his boyband of idiots..."
"But, you said he can't hurt you there, right...?"
"I know... I know... But still..."
"..."
"Have you... Have you ever been surrounded by a bunch of people who would not stop talking about how much they hate you and how they wish you were dead...?"
Gustav realized that this was another moment that Evlin needed someone to help her and sit down on his horse body.
"... Can't say that I have..."
"... Well, I have... Twice actually..."
"... Twice...?"
Evlin then turned her head down and started to hug her legs.
"One here... And one in my old world."
"..."
"When... When I was at school one day... There was this one boy who wanted me to be his girlfriend... He said he thought I was pretty and nice to talk to... But I didn't felt attracted to him... And one of my best friends had a huge crush for him... So I felt like it would be best to just reject the kid..."
"Oh..."
Gustav made a face as if he knew where this story was going.
"But when he made his offer and I refused, he got really mad at me and started to call me a bunch of names... Not only that, he did all he could to turn the whole classroom against me..."
"..."
"I went to my friend to ask her to talk to him, see if she could calm him down... But she acted like I was some stranger... She said she couldn't be my friend anymore because she didn't want to ruin her chances with that boy..."
"..."
"When I heard that... I felt so betrayed that I ended up slapping her... She was my friend and wasn't even his girlfriend... And yet she choose him over me... I never felt so angry at someone before... He was making my life in class a nightmare and..."
"And when you needed someone to help you... Someone to be your friend... She took advantage of it..."
"..."
Gustav started to rub his eyes with immense regret. He was reminded of the time Evlin asked to join their group and Gustav used her to make Daren look like a better leader. He just realized he was about as mature as a spoiled teenage girl.
Evlin continued telling her story with crying eyes. Gustav felt like history was repeating itself. Was he destined to listen to every tragedy in Evlin's life and observe her start crying without realizing it?
"After that... She went to the boy to talk about the way I slapped her... He used this story to make the class turn against me even more... One day I entered my class... And when I went to my desk... There was a line saying "Just die!" on it written with huge letters... And by the side a bunch of smaller lines saying things like "Just kill yourself", "You should die!", "Death to bad friends", and about twenty other variations of sentences telling me I was a horrible person and deserved to die..."
"..."
"I counted... There were twenty-seven sentences on that desk... That was the number of people in my class... Twenty-seven different ways to tell me I should just kill myself... Some of them didn't even know the guy... They just didn't want to join the losing team..."
"..."
"My desk was right in the middle of the class... I just turned my head and felt like I was surrounded by people who hated me... I tried to look for someone who could be on my side... But nobody cared..."
"..."
"My mother heard about that story and ended up quitting the school... She didn't want to teach in a place that would treat her own daughter like that... We spent... Such a long time trying to find a place for me... A place where I wouldn't be reminded of this horrible experience..."
"..."
"I thought I would never be able to set foot on a school ever again... But teaching was my mother's life... I couldn't take that away from her, not after she was the only one who supported me..."
"..."
"So... I did my best... I told myself I would not let a bunch of lying friends ruin my mother's life for something that wasn't even my fault... So one day, I went to my new school... And just tried to start over..."
"... Evlin... The reason you wanted to be a teacher..."
"It's because I wanted to be like my mom... She was my hero... The one who saved me when I was alone... I thought... I thought maybe if I followed her path... I could overcome my trauma for good... And maybe become someone else's hero too... Maybe one day I could help a sad little boy or girl who was suffering without nobody to run to..."
"..."
"But now... It's all happening again... I'm being surrounded by people who hate me for things that are not my fault... This is so unfair!! People just keep throwing their garbage on top of me because they are too lazy or too cowardly to deal with it themselves... Why does it have to be me!??"
"... Because it's easy..."
"...?"
"Why do you think I tried to use you when we first met instead of trying to properly talk to you...? We were all scared, confused, and lost... We needed some kind of light... Any kind of light... Something to tell us that there was some kind of solution up ahead..."
"..."
"I tried to take the short route... Instead of working to create our own light... I tried to take yours away..."
"..."
"People when they're weak... And when they give up to that weakness... They go towards the first solution that they can find... Why do you think Marcus hates us so much?"
"... Because he thinks we stole his time with his dad..."
"Wrong..."
"Huh...?"
"The truth is... Marcus doesn't hate us... He can't hate us, he barely knowns us... He never tried to really talk to any of us... He is angry with Marceus... He is angry because his father died and left him alone... But he doesn't want to hate his own father... So he directs it at us... The ones who remind him of his pain..."
"..."
"I've known you for a long time Evlin... Nobody could ever hate you... They hate themselves and their own weaknesses... And they look at you, and how strong you are... You remind people of what they are not, the girl that didn't surrender to weakness... But they never try to take the next step to actually try to be like you... It's easier to try and make you one of them..."
"..."
Gustav stood up on his horse body and extended his hand towards her.
"Evlin... These people will never stop trying to drag you to their level... You can't give them this satisfaction! You are better than this!! You are better than them!"
Evlin looked at him for a second, wiped her tears, and grabbed his hand. Gustav then pulled her up so she could walk on her own feet.
"You asked why it was always you... It's because you don't stay down! You prove to everyone that if you try hard and do your best, there is nothing that can't be done!"
Gustav grabbed her crossbow, placed it on her hand, and raised her arms so she would aim at the end of the unfinished bridge.
"If they will just keep coming after you just because you want to be who you are... Then show them that you are not afraid of them!"
Energy started to gather at the end of Evlin's crossbow.
"Show them that you are not afraid of fighting!"
The energy kept getting bigger and bigger.
"And show them, that they will never win against you!! Do you hear me??"
"Yes..."
"Evlin!! Do you feel proud of who you are?"
"Yes!"
"Do you love who you are?"
"Yes!!"
"Are you going to keep winning, no matter who comes your way??"
"YES!!!"
"Them show me!! Who! You! Are!!"
"I am the girl that doesn't surrender to weakness..."
The energy finally reached a point in its size where it was so big that it was starting to shatter the crossbow.
"And no one will take that away from me!!!"
Evlin finally released a massive amount of modeling energy towards the bridge which made the terrain extend itself at a much faster rate than before and with a much more solid structure.
The bridge increased so fast in size that it almost looked like a giant bullet was moving across the darkness of the pit.
When it finally collided with the other side, an enormous sound could be heard that echoed over the entire cave.
"It... It reached the end!!!"
"You did it!!"
"We did it!!!"
Evlin jumped on Gustav and started to hug him by the neck. Both of them were filled with great joy right now. Gustav finally felt like he managed to fix the mistake he made in the past while Evlin finally shared a wound that she was keeping to herself for so long.
"Evlin!"
"...!?"
"No matter what happens... I'm on your side!!"
Evlin made a crying grin and started to hug Gustav even tighter.
"Come on!! Let's get out of this gloomy place!!"
Part 3
Ashley was swinging her vines left and right deep inside the cave doing her best to latch on to any rock formations she could find, allowing her to swing through her path without even touching the floor.
"This is amazing!!"
[I know, I know... I'm amazing... No need to state the obvious...]
"I can't believe how much fun it is to be a dryad!! You get to do this every day??"
[Well... I used to... Until a bunch of humans disguising themselves as monsters came to me and decided to kidnap me...]
"Ugh... Again... Sorry about that..."
[It's fine, it's fine... Not like I'm the kind of girl who holds a grudge or anything... You just knocked me out, took over my body, and stripped me of my free will, no biggie...]
"..."
[Hey, I'm kidding... Honestly, you guys are not so bad...]
"Eh...? Really...?"
[Yeah... I mean... I never saw humans trying to see what life is from the point of view of a monster before... Your group is quite interesting!]
"Er... Thanks... But that was mostly my sister's idea..."
[Riiight... The crossbow girl... Evlin right...?]
"Yeah, that's her..."
[Can I ask you a question?]
"Huh, sure..."
[Why were you trying to run away from her...?]
"... What...?"