UNDER A DREAM (2)
Stalane's vision suddenly blurred. After she blinked multiple times in order to refocus her eyesight, the place she was currently at changed again.
Now, the young Stalane was finally convinced that something was wrong. She still couldn't figured it out what's going on though.
In a short distance away from her, V was standing there holding a gun. It was pointed at her.
The young Stalane who was supposed to be scared at the sight of the gun was confidently staring straight to her teacher's eyes. She was not even showing any signs of fear, which shocked V.
V remembered how scared the child was, when she was still at that basement. That is why it confuses him when he saw how this kid could stand in front of him this way.
"Are we gonna spar today?" The young Stalane asked.
V was confused at her question, but he frowned even more after her next statement.
"Ah, I guess not"
The young Stalane, which was only in front of V, disappeared in a blink. When V looked behind him, she saw the young Stalane pointing a gun on his back.
"When did you?" V asked in shock.
The young Stalane looked coldly at him. She doesn't know why but she just unconsciously blurted the things that she wanted to say that was concealed at the deepest part of her mind. "You're not my teacher. V is much more better than you. Who are you?"
"What are you talking about?"
V couldn't understand a single thing that the kid was blurting out. But the young Stalane continued to doubt him.
"V... My teacher..." She said in a low and sad voice. The young Stalane lowered her head as she slowly recall the past.
When the young Stalane looked up, the tears that was forming in her eyes were too apparent.
V's eyes went wide and somehow he felt bad.
"He died during a mission... So why are you here trying to act as my teacher?" the young Stalane continued.
Then the scene changed again. During this time the young Stalane met with her current self in a small room.
"My old self is really wise despite being in an illusion where my old consciousness was ahead of me. I'm proud of you" Stalane said to her young self.
The young Stalane looked at her adult self. That is when the young Stalane finally understood everything.
Ah, it's an illusion where she became a child again.
The young Stalane gave her brightest smile before she disappeared and become one with her current self.
"That's quite a memory, isn't?" She said towards to herself.
She opened the door that was on the room. Stalane believed that this is the way out.
After she opened it, a white light covered the whole place which blinded her for a minute.
In that short amount of time, she saw a glimpse of herself together with three other people that was eating with her for dinner inside a cozy house. It actually looked like it was a picture of a family. The two adult was seemingly like the parents, then the other guy that was beside her looked so close to her that everyone could imagine that they were actually a sibling.
When she opened her eyes, she was now out of the illusion.
"That last illusion would be really nice if it was real" Stalane whispered after she woke up.
She know that last minute of illusion was really a fake one since she had no parents nor a sibling. She's an orphan wherein she only treat V, her teacher, as his only parent. V was her master, father, mother, and a brother. But then the heaven already took him away from her.
She closed her eyes trying not to cry just because of the illusion that she dreamt of.
"Good morning, sleepy head. You really took your time sleeping, huh?"
But an annoying voice rang beside her which made her to open her eyes again.
It was Syton's voice.
Syton was crouching beside her. He was looking down on her with her smug face.
"Get away from my face, idiot" she said as she push his face. She sat down then looked around her.
"You've been asleep for 2 and a half hour. That's also the amount of time I had to wait for you to wake up." Syton informed her with the intention of bragging on how he woke up earlier than her.
"With that, I beat you. So it's already 2-1" he said while showing his fingers.
"We didn't agreed that we'll compete on who's gonna wake up faster, but whatever" Stalane said to easily dismiss any argument about their competition against each other.
"So? What's the situation?" Stalane asked for a report.
Syton shrugged before he stood up. "What's there to report other than you sleep like a log?"
Stalane kicked his knee which made Syton winced in pain.
"Hey!"
Unfortunately, Syton only received a death glare from her when he tried to complain.
"Tsk. Those two already went ahead. Then, I think someone was watching us earlier but they immediately left. The barrier that Amoura left was really helpful since there was really no dera who approached us for these past few hours" Syton said.
Stalane nodded. "Then let's go and find that herb"
Syton saluted, "Yes, ma'am!"
---
Logan felt that something was wrong when they are already half away on their destination. Amoura noticed it too.
"They're not following us anymore?" Logan asked.
Amoura was also worried why they stopped chasing after them. It's already been 20 hours and there's still no signs of them.
Amoura sighed, "Well, I guess that's better. We don't have to worry about fighting against them. Let's just go and finish our mission. We still have a long way to go"
Logan nodded in agreement before he looked where they came from one last time.
---
Outside of each towns, there's a large tower that is served as their laboratory, prison, or a library.
Inside one of that tower, a meeting room was reserved for a certain guild. It's a meeting room that will only appear after a member of that guild infused a mana and said a certain spell.
Currently, all of the member of that guild is are together inside the meeting room.
"A two braver under the Annex's barrier and these bravers are still alive? Those two are clearly an accomplice! Why did you let them go Vier?" A female voice shouted disappointedly towards Vier.
"That's what I also asked him, but he said it's a bait" Nueve added.
"They were under an illusion" Vier reasoned out with no emotion.
"So?" Ahn asked.
Vier sighed, not wanting to continue the pointless argument.
"There was someone who professionally erased the tracks of the Annex members. Let's focus finding the Annex rather than focusing on those 5H bravers. They're not worth of our time" Vier said.
"5H bravers?" A chilly voice rang along the meeting room. It was a voice that all of them are familiar with. They looked around the room but they could not see where it came from.
"Zero?" Hachi called out the name of the owner of that chilly voice.
"Stop looking for me and just tell me what this 5H braver look like." The voice said.