"The ordeal should happen any second now." Micca tried to control her breathing, straying away from dissonance and faltering will. "Regardless of where the banner pops up, every being in this forest will be transported to the world dreamed by the other side.
"It should be in our survival best interest to reunite as quickly as possible."
"To experience the event of the Banishing Banner." Shujang wryly smirked with furled brows. "I don't know if I'm lucky or cursed."
After knowing that the mass teleportation also includes the clothing we wore and the objects we have in hand. I already tailored a protection for both Micca and Shujang using the same special material to make the automated mechs.
Micca wasn't engraved with much protection on her lower beast part of her body as it would just obstruct her agility that she was so proud of.
Her humanoid part however, was equipped with what I could describe as the lovemaking of the modern elite soldier uniform and the protection of samurai's signature of small pieces of metal that were connected with silk laces and cords, making it flexible and comfortable for her to wear in many situations.
Her beastly claws were also added an extra protection on the shin and each of her backhands.
I also gave her a backpack full of useful tools, like AK47, an AK47, and another AK47. Each of them were fitted with large drum mags with their respective rounds made for different purposes.
This is definitely not because I only knew the inside mechanism of an automatic Kalashnikov 47 due to it being the only gun that appeared on my feed.
Definitely not.
I also gave each of those guns a custom ergonomic handle to fit Micca's beastly claws.
Of course, I also gave her other essential things.
Like a shovel.
You can do many things with a shovel.
And I also packed her some provisions.
I wonder if there will be a time where I need to pack her some lunch.
I haven't asked about her age yet.
In the meantime, Shujang was no longer wearing that skimpy cheongsam. Instead, her body was now adorned with tacticals plates and bulletproof-grade fibers along with a utility pocket belt on her waists together with many straps that might be useful later on.
I also decided to remove her kitsune tail as it would just get in her way in some scenarios. She felt uncomfortable without her tail, but it wasn't much of a pressing matter.
I also upgraded her whole muscles to be beyond that of a human strength without changing her appearance as much.
It might feel weird and unethical to tinker with a human body as if they were LEGO bricks, but ethics and abiding mental discomfort won't get me anywhere.
I wanted to do the same with Micca, but after a further consultation with both magic experts when it comes to the modification of sentient's bodies, it discouraged me.
Micca's bodily system and anatomy did fuse with that of a human, but that human part's interaction with the beast-like body is not something I'm adept at understanding.
Due to the nature of Hisoutenshizen, some creatures don't only rely on physical property in their body's biology, I'm afraid that altering even a tiny of those parts could severely affect her.
Not to mention, the interaction of the body with the soul that might be affected by magic.
Just like how Shujang got her soul possibly altered due to the influx of memory from the body that we forced her to be in, there might be similar consequences waiting to happen for Micca.
While this was a cruel interpretation towards Shujang who was really helpful to us the moment she joined the group, it still resulted in a beneficial scenario where I can freely alter her body as long as it was still within my knowledge.
And because Shujang technically possessed her body and was not anchored towards it, there was little to no effect to any modifications I did to her.
"Father, you're facing that tree for quite a long time, as if you're talking to someone."
"I'm monologuing inside my head in case someone is to peek at my daily life."
"Is my father already at that age?"
"You might want to make your father engaged from time to time. I heard that you can take care of your oldies to live a longer life with that."
"Shouldn't the two of you talk about that outside my earshots?"
"Father, that would be 'talking about someone behind their back', and it's a bad thing to do."
Still, the fatigue that was dampening my soul and mind was at the threshold where it might kill someone due to exhaustion.
It might be because of those Bloomings I performed, considering that this was the first day I'm using them too.
Then again, I'm thankful that this body still moves to my command, regardless of the weight and throbbing ache that was haunting my blobby heart.
Did this body even possess a heart to begin with?
I have endured the pain and torment of having those accursed pair of eyes back on earth.
This one should be a stifling matter.
The waiting for the second possible ordeal was nerve wracking, even with all of the preparation we made, alongside the quips we exchanged to keep each other in a sane mental state.
We might also have passed a couple of minutes from the predicted timing of the 'cracking'?
And taking into account how the Banishing Banner works, we put all eleven of our mechs into an idle, power saving condition.
"These babies." Micca caressed the cold prismatic steel of the mech like one would their offspring. "To not be able to see them in a war…"
"You might need a lesson on how to be a parent, Micca."
Just as we thought that the event of the Banishing Banner would skip us like the Ordeal of Hunger, the wind arrived with rage and endeavor to tell us that something massive was coming.
The peaceful bluish dark skies underwent a harrowing transformation.
The time's hand, which had flowed steadily, suddenly surged forward.
Clouds swirled and churned in a frenzied speed, propelling the storming wind onto every part of the forest. All of us knew neither on whether it was the world that was speeding forward, or it was only us who were hastily sent into the future.
And it might be because I weighed more than a normal slime where I stayed anchored to the ground despite the turmoil of the gale.
But the sight of the stars amongst the dancing clouds sheepishly moving into one direction, contrasting their usual reserved selves, was truly a beautiful sight to see.
A performance made in heaven.
"AAAAAAA–– what with all of these winds!?" Shujang exasperated.
"Father, stop stargazing and do something with this wind."
How do you even know that I'm stargazing, do I even have a face??
"Oh right, I forgot that I'm a Nature Shaman." Shujang immediately performed a Blooming before casting some sort of a protection spell on each of us, embalming our skin and armors with light green hue. "A Windbreaker Spell, it's still categorized as a Healing Magic because of its method of process, but we should be getting along with the wind with this."
"I guess it's faster than waiting for me to build a house made out of steel in the middle of a forest." I laughed.
"Uhm, I think we might be in a pretty bad time." Micca's nervousness could be felt by just looking at her face alone. "And it might not be related to the Banishing Banner in any kind of way."
"And what's your source?" Shujang asked.
"My source? How about my gut feeling, huh?"
"And your gut feeling says?"
"... It says that we're being accelerated into the time of midnight."
Suddenly, the raging wind stopped as if nothing ever happened, except for the ongoing objects traveling at the speed of a full-throttle motorcycle into the forest.
The night stood still.
It then dawned on me that the fearless presence of this world's moon was there right above us, about five of them, actually—gazing at every puny creature within the forest without any sympathy for the fate that we will go through.
And it wasn't only the moonlight that was gazing at us.
But a gargantuan bluish eye.
"Micca, does the moon always appear like that?" I asked my daughter to confirm the unsettling discomfort that was eerily rubbing my back.
"Nope, it probably only appears like that to anyone who's still in the vicinity of the forest." Micca said with a deadshot gaze, despite her casual tone.
"It's the eye of Sacrament," Shujang wryly laughed. "Mr. Occam, it might require more than a life to survive this."
"Everyone, lean on this side of the giant tree, now!" I shouted in impromptu.
And with each of us hugging the bark of this lonesome titan like our life was dependent on it, I immediately prompted Shujang about one of the plans that we concocted in our dining time, through the telepathic channel that we established.
She immediately performed her blooming, and so did I.
But this time, the energy I gained from the Blooming won't be stored in my soul to be cast in a spell.
It would be continuously sent to Shujang's soul reservoir, and at the moment she stopped her Blooming, the spell that she constructed would still be supplied by the energy I'm giving her.
And that spell would be the one that was categorized as a Spatial Magic.
"The spell has been cast!" Shujang said in her telepathic channel.
The space surrounding was then immediately isolated by a thin fabric of void, separating all sorts of our existence such as breathing, smell, heat, and soul from the world outside.
Micca tried her best to keep her fear from disrupting the focus that Shujang and I churned out to keep this space isolated.
And because we could still see the world outside of our isolated space, the maddening sight began to churn our heads inward.
For there were humanoid titans amongst the trees, pointing a gigantic rifle forward as they marched.