(From author: Now I am going to continue story with Ash's POV.)
....
" About the quest... Let's postpone it for now" I can't go out of the city M now anyway.
' Are you sure? What if you fail ? You will not receive your rewards'
Rose circled around me as I walked down the stairs.
After taking shower I feel like I can breath.
" It's ok and I know" but I will get that reward no matter what!.
Huh? I sniffed around. This place smell like strong wine?
" Who is drinking?" I looked in the living room but I couldn't find any sign of someone drinking or anything like bottle wines.
Rose was looking through transparent screen. I need to know if my dormmate has a habit of sneakingly drinking!
Ting'
Someone is calling me?
I opened my digital watch and a screen poped up. On the screen I could see raging face of my childhood friend.
( ASH)
I wonder why he is angry? ..oh I may know the reason.
" Hi Micah "
( COME AT THE CITY RESTURANT ! NOW!)
after saying that he cut our call .
' your friend seems angry.? ' rose come to my side .
" Haha" he is, after all I made him wait so long yesterday night so he should be.
I scratched my head and walked to the door.
My nose was itchy and for some reason my body was burning up. I looked back .
Am I allergic to strong wine smell?
I should talk to my dormmate not to drink here.
"But I was never uncomfortable with drinking?" I murmured
' what ?' rose looked back at me.
I nodded my head and walked out of my apartment and went down the elevator.
After taking taxi we apprached to our destined place and I could already see so many students walking with their groups.
I wonder how my college life will be.
I walked inside the restaurant and to the left corner I saw Micah sipping hot milk tea while listening to Jay and another person accompanied with them.
I walked to their table and Micah noticed me.
" Hi " I waved my hand .
Micah looked at me with an angry face. He turned from me.
Jay looked at him and turned his face to me.
" You have come "
I nodded and walked to the empty seat beside Micah who was sitting crosshanded.
I took the seat and looked at the other person.
" She is Ara , Kim Ara from student council"
Ara smiled showing two dimples on her cheeks. She stretched her hand toward me.
"It's nice to meet you "
" Nice to meet you too I am Ashton , Ashton .."
" I know about you"
She smiled taking her hand back .
" You actually should know that everyone in city M knows you."
Am I that famous.. oh is it because..
" You forgot you got top position during entrance test" Micah stretched his arms on the table resting his cheeks on the table while looking at me.
" So you are done being angry?" Jay joked.
I laughed with him. Earlier micah was not looking at me.
" Whatever " Micah took sips from his hot milk tea .
I know Micah he doesn't get angry for so long with me but I should explain to my friend who was worried for me right?
" Well I was caught up in earthquake that night and I was out in the cherry forest without my any communication gadget so I couldn't get any updates."
"What?!!" Micah looked at me with his wide eyes.
" I mean I lost them and it was cherry forest so there is nothing to be worried about" I forgot for Micah I am just a weak ash.
" that.. but how are you after accident? You didn't tell us"
I see his concerned look and it's bad to lie but I am okay so it's okay to lie I guess?
" I was able to avoid it thanks to driver's quick reaction."
I said but Micah looked at my face and then turned.
" You are really okay right? " Micah asked to make sure not looking at me.
No I am not but let's keep it to ourselves.
" En" I nodded.
" You are one lucky guy" jay said while ordering an other hot tea cups and cup cakes.
"Anyway we need to have gernel knowledge of city M so we can adjust here" said jay.
" Is this because of the announcement and why we were called here early? " Only that way it should be or else it's not like we were in some kind of survival place.
Jay nodded to my question and took out a gadget put it on the table.
A screen poped up with a video playing and showed a very known figure among the new generation " captain Randy Rueben".
" You must not have seen this video because it was published on the first day of announcement" jay said while playing the video.
On the video the captain Rueben of black night squid with vice captain Gray from twilight were both giving speech but where is grandpa he is the captain of twilight.
Maybe jay understood my confusion and said " it was announced that black squid and twilight will both work together to help awakeners. "
Then shouldn't captain of twilight be present too? But no thereis something else that's not public I guess.
I nooded to erase my confusion and looked at the screen.
(... We will help and guide the awakens from all over the cities. Under the supervisation of black squid and twilight. we will train them into best fighter to fight off monster raiding our home.)
The vice captain gray continued
( We are already preparing best traning grounds for awakeners in City M but we will make sure that the other student in city M will be comfortable and not disturbed)
Are they going to gather awakeners into city M? There are other places to train them but why here?
" They are already looking for awekeners in the remote and central cities " jay said while changing the screen video.
" Have they found any?" According to rose only the escaped soul was awakened and then me.
" I guess they have been looking but I don't know if they have found any because there hasn't been any news on that" jay answered to me while showing some pictures .
" What's this?" I looked at the pictures in the screen . They were the ancient places of earth in history.
" It's says many explorer found these strange roots covering the places."
It's looks familiar these roots I have seen them in the black forest but those belong to that monster that has no exact data.
" People don't go there but these roots are spreading like fungus"
" Are they harmful ?"
" No but these places are swarming with wild animals."
Maybe these roots are not what I think.
" Then what does this have to do with announcement?"
No one get hurts there nor this place is near to city M and it also has nothing to do with apocalypse.
" Because all awaken students will be sent there for their first training."
" Then?"
Jay looked at Micah and Micah looked at me.
Okay ? Am I missing something?
" You have been out for too long I guess?" Jay sighed.
" Here's you tea and cakes" the waiter put the cake teas on the table. He looked at me with the corner of his eyes and I swear I could see a blush on his cheeks. But I am used with that reaction.
" Stupid!"
I looked at Micah he was snouting.
"?"
"Did you eat breakfast?" Jay said while putting the cake to my side.
" No " I said while taking bite from the cup cake. I didn't get breakfast because of the things happening so early.
" It's already lunch time and you didn't even have breakfast? What were you doing the whole morning?" Micah said. He took strawberry flavored cake.
"Sleeping I guess?" I was busy in the soul world.
" Tsk tsk aunt would get worried for you if you skipped the breakfast like before."
Micah ate from his cake.
" Then I should hire you as my breakfast reminder like before?" I played with my spoon.
"Like I would do that again mm!" He said while eating cake in his mouth.
I took a spoonfull bite from his cake before he could avoid my snatch.
" Why are eating mine when you have yours?" Micah jumped at me.
" Cause it's taste delicious eating from your buddies" I laughed avoiding my cake to be safe from Micah.
" Then let me have too!"
" Nah buddy you can't take mine but if you can..huh" I smirked at him.
" Huff ! Fine !" Tired Micah just gave in and sat back on his seat.
We laughed at his reaction.
" You guys are so mean!"
Micah complained scooping his whole cake into large bites making his mouth full. Making sure I won't be able to steal again.
" Micah being cute like hamster" I laughed , going for a pinch on his cheeks but Micah slapped my hand away.
"Ouch! That hurts" I rubbed the back of my hand.
" Say that again" Micah said with angry eyes.
" You know whenever we eat ash will always snatch your food so you should have been trained to avoid him but you still can't defend your food" jay laughed while saying to him.
After joining our friendzone jay knew how me and Micah were during lunchtime.
It's the habit of me since childhood I have always eaten from Micah's plate no matter what . But also snatching food from Micah to make him annoy was also amusing since I always craved for sibling fights. Those days are so fresh in my mind. How can I change my habbit even after our reunion I still snatched his food subconsciously like we were always together.
" I curse you both will have hard time with your partners" Micah said while nibbing the fork in his mouth.
" Then I will just stick with you" haha if atleast I was beta I could have gotten myself a partner but what bad luck.
" F* Don't even try me"
I surendered my hand " sorry you are not soft with tongue so I don't think I could handle a child"
" Child? Am I looking like kid to you?" Micah pinched my elbow.
" Ow no I mean you are not my type I was just kidding"
" Fine"
I rubbed my sore elbow and noticed that we weren't the only people here . Ara was here too watching us.
" Ehm" I cleared my throat and looked at jay who was amused but we weren't here to chit chat and not long ago we were discussing something.
" Okay so what were we saying?" I took the opportunity to comeback to our previous topic. " Awaken student being sent to ancient places for what ? Clearing the wild animals or roots?"
Jay also didn't thought of teasing Micah anymore and so continued our topic.
" Recently there was research done there and the cause of earthquakes was related to these roots. " Jay showed me and then looked at Ara.
"Let me explain the situation," Ara showed a flow chart "sometime ago the research found these roots were spread underground the cities where the earthquake appeared . These roots have been expanding and have finally appeared on the ground. To make it simple these roots needs to be eliminated before all the cities turns upside down." Ara explained as if a professor's speech.
"Government can't evcuate people as to they are not sure how further deep range it has or how many cities are there that have roots covered under the ground."
I was coming from city A to city M and was involved in the earthquake . If roots have spread so long doesn't that mean even the capital city is not safe? It's really a big problem if not solved early.
" What do you think Ash ?" Jay asked me , snapping me out of my thoughts.
" I think this problem need to solved quickly." I answered but then Are asked me " so you also think that the decision of government is right?"
" I guess..." Looking at her I think this is not what she means.. something feels off. Ara seemed to know something else but she is checking waters with me to know if I am worthly of her information that she wants to tell.
" Maybe there are some cause and effects like if you put a sleeping monster into this what do you think will happen? "
Ara is telling me to think that If I disturb a sleeping monster doesn't that put me in great danger I mean look who will disturb sleeping monster not knowing how aggressive they can be right? Wait does she mean those wild animals or roots in this situation? Surely she can't be about roots .
I looked in her eye. Her eyes were searching answers from mine and I instantly had an idea what she meant. The roots have history that the government either doesn't know or is hiding.
" Well I guess you have an idea already but want to confirm from me " I looked at her with a smile.
She nodded lightly with her blushed face like red tomato but still didn't turn away and I could feel Micah hitting my side under the table.
" Yes by now you must have understood that there is something else" she answered.
" This is rather some serious issue but why are you telling me ? Do you think I can help you?" I don't think I am someone people come to ask help.
" I know you can't help me nor I am asking you to help me also it's not my concern as I am leaving soon" Ara said while looking at her hands.
"Then what do you expect from me " it's not like she is completely giving me this knowledge for free.
" Nothing I wanted to meet Jay's friend as he doesn't talk to me since his high school."
She looked at jay then continued " I am leaving to planet yo62"
"That planet has already been destroyed"
Everyone one knows what happened to that planet.
" There are things that just don't disappear if it's destroyed I am going there because I want to look for something " she answered.
" The lost soul seed was said to be last found there" she said in a soft tone. Like she was wishpering to herself. If it wasn't for my good hearing maybe I wouldn't have heard that.
" That seed ...by any chance are you 'Ameretat'..! " I blinked. What did I just said.
" Who ? Me ? " Ara looked at me with confusion like why would I call her that.
The only person to know about that seed was ' Ameretat'
Ameretat. It means 'immortality.' It is also the name of the Zoroastrian Goddess of plants. She was a popular npc in game that shows up in later part of game to help players advance to next stage of game. Although there was no back story of her but she was one in the heroes team and you need to find her and recruite in your team to solve the stage. To find her you need to go through stages so you can coincidentally meet her and solve the stage . Easy and simple. Although it looks easy but it's not easy because she ain't just an npc that you can recruit and I know how many f* times I failed to complete her quest.
She will give quest to look for impossible plants to make her potions until then she won't help you. And that seed is the key product of her quest that was never found but you can substitute that seed with something else
Surely she is not her. Because the game never revealed her real name nor her face that was always covered in hood.
" Nothing I was just thinking something else " surely she can't be her because Ameretat was the one of last character you want to meet but still you can't avoid her. Thinking of that Ara seems like a normal person so she can't be her. And I am sure Ameretat is actually thousand year old grandma. I must have judged wrong.
I was going to ask something else when jay said something.
" That's her nick name "
My spoon slipped from hand and made a click sound when hitting the table.
" Ameretat ?" I asked to confirm
" Yes " he seriously answered. " Only close people know that but why do you know?"
"..." I was silent not sure whether I was shocked to know she was really her or that I was actually meeting with future Ameretat .
..to be continued.