"Be honest, do you think the people of Velmout survived the attack?" Zeno asked.
Uta was lying on his leg but raised her head after hearing the question.
"Are you still concerned?" Uta asked.
"Of course I am, I didn't spend enough time with them but I still grew up under their care." Zeno uttered.
Uta looked away before puffing her cheeks, "I don't care about that, you have to start caring for me only." She said.
"Isn't that a little selfish?" Zeno asked.
"Well of course, I'm allowed to be selfish." She replied with a smug look on her face.
"So you won't tell me then?".
Uta sighed after hearing the question Zeno asked, she gave a warm smile and looked in his direction.
"I can't say for sure, if I'm honest I doubt they survived it, but I can promise you this, as long as I am by your side, nothing will happen to you." Uta voiced out.
She stood to her feet before dusting her skirt with a smile,"Well now, here they come." She said.
Zeno also stood up from the ground to see Andrew and the girls riding towards them inside a tractor.
They rode the tractor all the way to Zeno's front before stopping the vehicle with a vroom sound.
The window came sliding down and Andrew popped out his head with a smug expression.
"I don't mean to brag, but yeah, I fixed it." Andrew bragged, placing his left hand outside the car window while resting his head on the door.
They managed to get a tractor that had some fuel inside, fuel was really scarce so for them to find a vehicle that had some was extremely lucky.
The tractor itself is called an Omni carrier, something that was created by the demon empire to run on magical fuel that helps the transporters move.
"And we got food too, although they might not last us much, a week at best." Ava muttered while holding up a brown sack that was filled with fruits.
They had gathered enough food and clothing from all the nearby buildings, making sure they had everything they needed for their journey.
Once they had everything they needed they sought to make their way to any nearby village, with the intent of meeting any survivors from their village along the way.
They had never heard of any village outside their own, the only memories they had are the ones spent in the village.
In fact, none has ever spoken about the outside world, the only thing they know is that wild monsters lurk outside the village.
Wanting to find new people, and new surroundings, that in itself gave them more drive to want to leave the village.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
"What the hell do you want from me? Stay away!" Zeno yelled, while running around an empty town.
He was being chased by a man in a black garment holding a long scythe and a white glowing ring floating on top of his head.
Zeno ran as fast as he could, trying desperately to get away from the man, but it was no use trying to run from someone that keeps appearing everywhere he went.
Zeno found a mansion and immediately entered before locking the door behind him; he rested his back on the door with a sigh of relief as he started to pant heavily.
"What is going on? it feels like I'm in a dream?" He peeped through the small crack in the door to check whether the man was out there.
But instead, he felt a cold breeze rush past his body, he slowly turned his head to see the scythe man in front of him with a grin.
"You can't escape, I'll always be everywhere you look." The man in the black garment voiced in a static tone before slashing Zeno with the scythe.
Ava and Uta sat beside Zeno and watched the way he was screaming and shaking in his sleep.
"How long is this going to last?" Ava asked with a worried look on her face as she held his hand.
"I have no idea, but I don't think holding his hands will do any good, kindly let go." Uta said with her eyebrow twitching in annoyance.
"You think it's mental? it happens every time he falls asleep" Ava uttered, ignoring Uta and focusing her gaze on Zeno.
Ava just sat beside Zeno, watching as he groaned in pain while sweating, "It's been going on for three whole days".
Uta sighed, "This is going to be a pain in the ass, I might accidentally kill her." She muttered before standing to her feet and walking over to Zeno.
While all this was happening in the back seat, Andrew and Anna were in the front seat monitoring their destination.
Andrew was the one driving but got tired and then had to switch with Anna who was even less of a driver.
"Don't you think it's weird?" Andrew asked as he stared out the Omni Carrier window while looking at the empty path all around him.
"What is?" Anna asked.
"We've been driving for three days now, and we've not seen any standing buildings, not even one, all we've been seeing are those purple weird plants".
The road felt empty, gardens grew beyond their artificial borders and began claiming parts of the streets and broken houses.
There were signs of human belongings along the way but they were either almost completely destroyed or irrelevant.
The area was surrounded by trees while the road they drove on stayed in the middle.
"Wow, way to figure that out guineas," Anna uttered sarcastically, "Of course it's weird, not to speak of the fact that we are running out of magic fuel".
"Funny how I never thought about how the world looked like outside our village, it's incredible and stupidly dry" Andrew smiled, staring at the purple leaves as they sped by.
"Uhm hmm, of course, pretty boy, but the magic fuel isn't really saying happy-" Anna got interrupted by the loud bang she heard from the back of the Omni carrier.
Andrew and Anna both turned to check what the noise was all about and saw that the back rear window had been broken and Zeno was missing.
"What the hell was that?" Anna asked before focusing back on driving while she tried to stop the car.
Andrew stretched his body to the back to see that Zeno wasn't in the car, "Where the hell is demon boy?" Andrew asked.
"Stop the damn car!" Uta yelled, they could clearly see the angry look on her face.
"Hold on" Anna uttered before positioning the car to the side of the road.
Uta lost patience and jumped out of the car through the car top.
She landed on the ground and was about to go on foot to chase after Zeno, but things didn't go as planned.
. . . . .
"What happened?" Zeno groaned as he slowly stood up from the ground.
He was laying in the middle of the street with trees all around him and broken glass underneath where he laid.
"Oh right, I was in a dream… and something pulled me-" he looked around and saw bandits coming out from the woods.
They had with them different weapons as they walked out of the forest with sinister looks on their face.
Zeno sighed after sighting them and immediately realized that it was an ambush, "Well, do you by any chance want to help me?".
...
Author's note
I would really appreciate your comment and support of this novel with your power stones.
Your active comments would motivate me to write more chapters.