"Mya! Mya! Wake up!"
Accompanied with a soft smack to the cheek, Mya heard the voice and was faintly waking up from her short nap.
Upon having her eyelids halfway opened, she was greeted with a warm sunshine, including Alaine's face in front of her.
"Sister Alaine?" Mya spoke before raising upright from the grass floor.
Alaine, who had moved away for Mya to get up, helped Mya and filled her in with the situation.
"Right now, we're in the event, I think. I don't know much yet, but it looks like we're going to have a very hard time."
"And why—" Even before Mya could ask Alaine, Mya noticed her surroundings to be filled with countless flowers.
Unlike the previous garden, this place was like the outside grassland with billions of flowers, in addition to a fully functioning sun in the blue sky.
"Holy seeds.." Mya gasped in amazement.
"Yep, this looks so beautiful that I just want to stay here.. And wait, did you just curse..? Nah.."
At that moment, a familiar voice resounded from above everyone, sounding thrilled as if she couldn't wait.
[Did you have a wonderful nap?] It was Eve.
"ie." Mirai answered honestly and straightforwardly.
* ( "ie" Japanese → English "No" )
[How mean. Oh well.]
Mirai who had just woken up from her unwanted nap, swiftly stood upward to glance at Eve and not the flowers field.
By now, these three ladies knew that they were the only ones in this area, considering that there were nothing but a field of flowers everywhere they looked, they had come to a conclusion that now, they were alone to complete this event by themselves.
'And to be stuck with this person. Hmp.' Mirai thought while flapping her fan to cover her irritated expression.
Afterwards, Eve landed on the cloud in the sky, leisurely laying on it like it was a bed. She then started giving an explanation for this situation.
[I'll explain what the point of this event is to all of you.]
[First, there are three phases you need to complete in order to finish this event. Second, this first phase will be the language of flowers.]
She kept on informing everyone when in fact, Mirai, Mya and Alaine had already known everything about this first phase when they were talking about the plan with Frostina.
Anyways, Eve resumed speaking.
[This phase requires you to know the meaning of flowers, once you know which flower fits perfectly for the meaning showcased to you, you must pick 100 in each of those flowers and put them in the oversized basket right beside you.]
[Once every flower is placed within the basket in under 77 minutes, phase 1 will be completed.]
[I don't need to explain about what happened when the timer ends, right? Good.]
After explaining for so long, Eve noticed how everyone's expressions didn't change much as though they already understood the situation they were already in.
'Make sense, since a few of them in this guild already knew the first phase of this event.' Eve thought and shrugged while slowly laying her gaze on Mirai.
[Let's start with the easiest flower.]
After speaking, Eve clapped her hand to reveal a panel that showed a blackout flower with the meaning underneath it.
[What flower represents love?]
"Red rose." Mirai and Mya responded at the same time.
[Correct! From there, you must pick 100 of that flower and put it in the basket next to you.]
[Are we clear? Great! Then let the timer begin!]
Eventually, a system message of a timer emerged in everyone's viewpoints, telling them that it was a ticking time bomb if they failed to finish this phase.
[00:77:00]
"Let's do it." Alaine raised her hands to the others and completely rushed to find the red rose.
Eve warned them. [Just to be clear, this event will be harder than the previous ones.]
After that, Eve clapped her hands again to unveil another panel for the participants to solve.
[Another thing you might or might not know, the one who picked those flowers, will be receiving the consequences for picking the wrong ones. Thus, be careful.]
"Mya. Do you remember the plan big sis have told you?" Mirai asked Mya as she began to fold her fan.
Mya nodded, saying. "Yes, I do."
"That's great. Then why don't we finish this quickly~?"
While smiling toward Mya, Mirai had unleashed her strings through her fingers before walking further into the field of flowers.
Being the only one who hasn't moved from her spot, Mya took a deep breath before staring at the panels being showcased to her.
After realizing Mya's intention, Eve grinned, narrowing her eyes at Mya. As Eve's excitement was growing more and more hyper, she asked the child.
[Are you going to speed through this?]
With a little hesitation, Mya gulped down her saliva and replied to Eve. "Yes!"
———
[00:75:48]
Following Frostina's plan for this event. Mya, being the person who deciphered the meaning of the flowers and checking the flowers of what Mirai and Alaine had brought into the basket, she had the most important role in this plan.
Mirai and Alaine would be the one picking the flowers Mya had told them, luckily for them, every flower within this field had a name tag flowing on top of those flowers which made it easier for Mirai and Alaine to tell the difference between the others.
But even still, Mya must confirm the flowers those two ladies had placed next to her before putting them into the basket. Fortunately, Mya had Alaine's clones to help sort out the flowers just to make it much easier to arrange.
[00:73:36]
"Humility and constancy? That's Bluebell." Mya spoke with sweat building up on her forehead.
Sliding the panels away from her, Mya told one of Alaine's clones about the flower. By then, the clone had left the area to tell Mirai and Alaine to find that flower.
[00:69:53]
Not only that, after Mya received the flowers from Mirai and Alaine, she had to multitask by figuring out the flowers and sorting the flowers in the basket.
'They are depending on me to choose the right flowers. I can't make a single mistake or else it will be my fault to blame..!' Mya thought as she wiped her sweat off.
SCREECH!!!!!!!
All of the sudden, loud noises started to ring from Mya's right side with the ground unexpectedly rumbling in an abrupt behavior. Turned out, there were some kind of tree monsters appearing in thin air, running toward Mya to prevent her from doing her duty.
"This..! There wasn't anything about monsters in the plan? So why..?" Shocked, Mya gasped as she pulled out her bow to prepare to shoot.
[00:66:06]
"Those are Ents.." Mirai had rushed ahead of Mya to tell her that.
"But why are they appearing..?"
"I don't know, but you must focus on your task while I deal with these creatures."
Out of nowhere, Mirai discovered a large amount of the same exact people fighting against the Ents by herself. When Mirai recognized the only person who would do this, she called out.
"Alaine! What are you doing?!"
[00:64:19]
Alaine, who had vanished from her flower picking spot, was now in front of the Ents. Attacking them with all her might while preventing them from getting closer to Mirai and Mya, Alaine exclaimed.
"Change of plan! Mirai will be picking the flowers and I'll be the one fighting these Ents!"
"Nani?! You can't defeat those Ents by yourself!" Mirai was surprised as she uttered.
Despite being dumbfounded by Alaine's actions, Mirai couldn't just let a single person fight those Ents because that would be suicidal.
"Get away—" Before finishing her sentence, Mirai was stopped by Mya when she held her sleeve tightly.
[00:60:59]
Mya looked at Mirai with her determined gaze before saying. "Let sister Alaine do this! We'll just have to make sure to finish this phase 1 as fast as possible so she doesn't have to deal with them a long time!"
"..."
When Mirai witnessed how confident Mya was with her glance, Mirai didn't have a choice but to listen to Mya.
Mirai pat Mya's head before telling her. "Alright~ Let's do this fast."
After saying that, Mirai pulled her hands back to drag out the flowers she had picked with her strings. While hurling them and resting those flowers beside Mya, she began to continue doing this at an incredible rate.
[00:57:31]
In the midst of this, Mirai had realized how this revised plan was the right thing to do.
'Kuso! If I were the one fighting the Ents, it would take a hard time to finish them off and it would also be long for Alaine to pick all the flowers within this huge field by herself!' Mirai thought.
"Yellow rose!" Mya cried out toward Mirai.
Grinding her teeth a bit as all of them were in a dire dilemma, Mirai nodded before manipulating her strings to fetch 100 of the yellow roses.
Without a doubt, Mirai needed to finish this as quickly as possible before Alaine could die from those Ents behind them.
That was when Mirai shifted her glance at Mya, noticing such a familiar expression on the child's face. For once, this expression meant something to Mirai, it was enough to feel nostalgic.
[00:53:24]
Even still, why was Mirai somewhat calm in this situation after seeing this expression? It was strange for her to feel this way at this moment.
'What is this feeling?' Mirai pondered as she was dazed by Mya's determination.
Soon, Mirai spoke with trembling lips when she recalled her past. "I remembered.."
That was when Mirai became aware of her resemblance toward Mya. Mya, a child who wanted her mother to be alive again, gladly risked her life to go through such a challenging thing.
"I'm the same as her.." Mirai mumbled while her pace was slowing down a little.
"I'm a child who also wished for my mother to come back.. But ended up getting my captain to die instead.."
A past in which Mirai didn't want to recall at all when she entered this Garden Of Eden, was resurfacing from her subconsciousness.
A memory from a distant time was unveiled inside Mirai's mind, projecting an image of a corpse with half of its body parts gone.
[00:48:54]
"Captain…"
"...Purple Hyacinth." Mya said while overhearing Mirai's every word.
Mirai, going back to doing her work by picking 50 purple hyacinths, was something that Mya noticed. Needless to say, Mya felt more conflicted by what she wanted now.
Mya wondered while tossing away a wrong flower out of the basket. 'She lost.. Uncle JoonChul once..? I don't understand, but I can feel her sorrow without a doubt from just her sad voice.'
"Mom.. What must I do?" Mya held her amulet after whispering her question to it.
'Uncle JoonChul helped me multiple times and I know he's a kind person.. Of course, I was depressed when he died.' She thought, tightening her grip on her amulet.
'Even I want to save him, but I also want to revive mom… What should I even choose to do now..? I'm so confused, mother..'
"Mya! Focus!" Mirai called out.
When out of the blue, a boulder was thrown at the puzzled Mya who was deep in her thoughts. "Eeekk!!
..As luck may have it, Mya was fortunately saved by Mirai who had jumped in to wrap her strings around the boulder, stopping its movement in the process.
Afterwards, Mirai used her might and strings to spin the boulder around before letting go of it and flinging it back to the Ents.
[00:44:12]
"Thank you.." Mya spoke in gratitude.