"Wh-what is this place...."
This was the first thing uttered by Warret when he regained
consciousness. Once he opened his eyes, a stream of light
entered them, forcing him to close his eyes again out of reflex.
Finally after a few minutes of eye rubbing, his eyes got adjusted
to light and he opened them. He lying on something soft and
silky. Taking a look at the surroundings, he gulped because the
sight in front of him was very unexpected.
Warret wasn't alone,
Amene was lying beside him while Maina was asleep with her
back against a corner. As for the other boy,
"Heh. Took you long huh?" Ashu was ruffling his hand through
his hair in an impromptu attempt to tidy it. He seemed to be
sitting on a chair by the window.
"Really? I'm not the last one to wake up."
Warret decided to end
this stupid argument before discussing the more important
things.
"You are. Maina was the one to wake up first. She found all of
us lying, out cold. She called for help. After a whole lot of verbal
harassment and trouble, she finally got the village chief to help
us. Naturally, everyone doubted her because she was talking in
a language that was unheard of. Even the chief was shocked
silly. But upon hearing our plight, he offered to give us shelter. As for how he managed to understand our language, don't ask me that.
Amene told me all of this when I woke up. Seems like both she
and Maina were exhausted and went to sleep instantly."
Warret took a look around him while digesting Ashu's words.
The walls of the room were of the colour of raw sienna, which
suggested that it was made of wood.
It was quite modest,
neither big nor small. He was lying on a soft, silky pile of cloth,
as well as Amene. There were two folded piles of the same silky
cloth, kept on one corner. The ceiling was of the same colour as
the door. There was a hook on the ceiling, and from it dangled a
yellow coloured crystal.
Appeared to be carved with extreme
precision, it had a large number of surfaces. But since the
surface itself was giving off the light, no patters of light were
formed.
The floor was brown, darker than the walls, and
planked. A soothing scent wafted, it was very pleasing and eased Warret's tense nerves.
After a few minutes of observing his surroundings, he relaxed.
As soon as he did, he was reminded of something. With a look
of urgency on his face, he turned towards Ashu and....
"Royo is outside, in the garden, talking to the people. As for
Mino and Alison and his group... they didn't appear here. Mino
told that that thing was a teleport scroll. It won't be weird if we
got teleported to different places. I dunno whether I should hope
that Mino and the bullies teleported in the same place or not."
Ashu finished his
words with a wry smile on his face. He looked worried.
"Let's go. We should thank the people who helped us."
"Yeah maybe we should. We need to gather intel too."
Warret jerked his head back to see Amene sitting up and folding
the sheets.
"By the way do they know that we..."
"Ssssshhhhhhhh! Are you a fool! Why the hell are we gonna tell
them that!"
"E-eh? W-why not..." Warret's face was nervous when he saw
Amene fiercely shushing him.
"Are you out of your damn mind! We will declare that we are
from another world, only for them to treat us like some sort of
zoo animal! It's already fortunate that they have assumed us to
be from a different country! I'm sure we have to answer a whole
barrage of questions..."
Warret found himself unable to offer a counter.
So he said,
"Should w-we wake Maina up?"
"Guess we should. It's time we get ourselves aware of our
surroundings. It's a whole different world after all." Ashu offered
this remark.
"I feel sad for her. She was crying. The fact that others might
have ended somewhere else, possibly somewhere dangerous...
especially Mino...might have upset her a lot."
Amene had a
frown on her attractive face.
"Yeah... she's too kind... but i'm sure Alison and others will
support each other." Warret smiled.
Both Amene and Ashu rolled their eyes simultaneously.
"Uuuuummmmm!"
Looking over to the direction of the soft sound, they saw Maina
stretching herself, hands interlocked.
"Amene and others... seems like I'm late... sorry okay?" giggling
childishly, she stood up walked up to Amene.
"Maina. I won't forget this favour. Thanks for helping us out in
this situation, I'll surely do everything to repay this favour."
Warret put his right hand on his chest as he declared this in a
solemn voice.
"Ahem! Now if we may, Royo is waiting outside." coughing to
shift the general attention towards him, Ashu strolled and
opened with door with a satisfying click.
*Tap tap tap*
Making a tapping sound, the group of four walked through the
corridor, approaching the stairs.
Closing the door, they noticed
the words 'GUEST ROOM' carved on it.
Warret looked here and there curiously, observing the grey
vases exhibiting beautiful flowers, their delicious fragrance
leaking into the air.
There were two more rooms with similar
white doors, one had a carving 'Vin' and the other, 'Cent'.
Warret couldn't help but chuckle softy. Hearing him chuckle out
of nowhere, the others looked at him with confused faces, but
when they followed his gaze, they too broke out into wide grins.
The tapping changed into thumping when they descended
the stairs.
Soon they found themselves seated in the dining room. The
table was large and circular, with intricate carvings around its
edges.
The general appearance was the same as other rooms, only
that it was significantly larger. This floor had four doors and a
narrow passage leading to somewhere. One was more ornate
and larger, it could be assumed that it was the main door of the
house.
Seven crystal lamps were present, but only none of
them were glowing. Natural illumination in the form of sunlight
streamed through the open windows.
The group of five sat beside each other, and they covered half
of the circumference, the other half was covered by the village
chief's family.
He was a middle aged man with thick bushy
eyebrows and gentle eyes. Brown hair, with a few strands of
silver.
Beside him sat his wife, a woman with brown hair too, but a
darker shade. She was smiling softly, a look on anticipation on
her face.
There were three others too, two girls, slightly older
than them, and a young boy. He appeared to be around fifteen.
Interestingly, it seemed like the hair had decided to swap
genders, the girls had the bright brown hair while the boy had
the darker shade.
The table was laden with food. There was a giant loaf of bread,
and bowls of soup in front of everyone steaming deliciously. It
looked very appetizing. There was a plate with white butter on
it, a knife by it side.
The man finally decided to talk. Looking at Warret sitting directly
across, he opened his mouth. An unfamiliar sound came out,
but to the surprise of Warret and his friends, they could
understand every syllable clearly.
"I am Kalor. Chief of Understone village. Welcome to our abode,
travellers. Let us have a nice discussion while we partake of this
humble spread. Hope you will enjoy this food. Don't hesitate to
ask for more, i'm sure this discussion would be quite long."