Well, after that nonsense happened, I really did get acquainted with Ada, because I could not just ignore her after everything that took place, it just felt wrong.
So, every day she made an effort to meet me to spar with me, and she also shared food that her grandmother prepared after we're done, because she says that it's the least that she could do for troubling me, and that our tired bodies needed to replenish its energy.
Hence, I've just seen it in a positive light, after all if there is someone who can match me and help me improve that would be Ada, plus the meat and the fruit that she brings are really good.
"Hey Ada, tell your grandmother that I'm thankful for the meals" Philip said informally because they've gotten close enough to talk to each other that way, due to the days that they've spent together.
"I-I haven't told her about sharing my meals, a-and I have not really told her about you yet." Ada replied with a troubled expression as she gulped down the soup that she was holding.
Philip was shocked about the news, he had assumed that her grandmother or her parents already had at least already gained some form of knowledge about him, but he quickly regained his composure since he genuinely enjoyed the food and had thought that the least, he could do was to thank them for it.
"Really? because that would be a shame, I've loved her cooking ever since day one, especially the seasonings that she adds to the meat, it's just done right for my taste!" As Philip smiled while chewing the chicken meat.
Ada blushed at what Philip just said, and replied in an embarrassed tone, "A-Alright, I'll tell my grandma when I have the time."
Philip felt weird about her reaction and had thought that, 'Did I say something weird?'
("Honestly, what a dense Mothafucka" The narrator commentated)
...
Ada started to greet me every day, however it would've been fine if those greetings were normal, although there are times when she would just approach me normally, but there are times when she would play tricks on me.
Sometimes she would play this game, where she would intentionally hide her presence to catch be my surprise, but of course I've always been able to detect her presence before she could even approach me. Because once I've already gotten a hold of her scent, it would be registered in my mind forever, although that might sound weird buy me heightened sense of smell are always almost constantly active.
Anyways, I can't say that I didn't enjoy it too, I've enjoyed teasing her, it was just really fun to see her wrack her brain, trying to figure out how I could always detect her.
I've never told her that I was just using my sense of smell, so she kept trying to better her disguise, not realizing that she was going about it in the wrong direction...
***
"BOO!" Ada shouted as she popped out covered in leaves while hanging from one of the tree branches.
However, it did not cause any change in Philip's "As always everything bores me" face, or any slight hint of his body being surprised by her sudden appearance.
"You know, I have already known that you were there from the beginning, right?" he replied in a monotonous voice, as he kept on walking to find a better spot to take his afternoon nap.
Ada then jumped out the tree and began walking besides him, she then replied to him in a childish tone, "Bleeegh! You're no fun!"
Then as they were walking besides each other, Ada came up with a very interesting topic-
"Anyways hear this, when I was on my way here, I overheard one of the adults talking about a lucky charm, apparently it was an amulet that the previous village chief left behind, it was supposed to be the thing that wards off the beasts outside of our village, also I heard that the village chief that created the amulet, was the same guy on the stone statue that was in the middle of our plaza."
"Alright, keep on going" Philip replied in a somewhat interested tone.
Ada asked Philip in an astonished tone of voice, confounded by his lack of expression on the sudden bomb of plot twist and revelations that she just said, "Don't tell me you don't know that guy?!"
Philip just looked at her with the expression that can be summarized in one word, "HUH?!"
"You know! that guy, the one our village worships and celebrates the most, the one considered to be the very hero of our town, because without him this village wouldn't have existed, the very first and last guy to awaken barrier magic, Lord Byron!" As Ada spoke in a suspenseful tone to make her story sound more compelling to Philip.
"I-I see" Philip spoke in hesitance, as he was flabbergasted at how passionate Ada is at storytelling.
"Since the adults rarely talks about this and all they tell us and the outsiders was the fact that Lord Byron awakened barrier magic, so we would all assume that the reason for our village being protected was also his barrier magic. We were only supposed to hear this story once we turned eighteen and only once when we decided to stay in this village for good, but even then, the village chief has got to trust you enough." Ada turned into an NPC so that she can reveal such a crucial piece of information without being questioned.
She then asked Philip in an inviting tone and as always, with a smile on her face, "So, wanna confirm the rumors with me?"
Philip was in, but he wanted to get more details about her plan, "Then first, have you found out where the amulet is located?"
Ada then replied in a proud voice, "Yes! I thought you would ask about this, I heard the amulet is located in the village chief's home, right inside his secret basement..."
After discussing her plans with Philip for about half an hour, Ada left in a hurry, but she never forgets to wave back at Philip,
"let's meet up back here later at midnight!" Ada ran as fast as she could, while the sun was almost setting.
'Is that really true? Such an item that provides luck could not actually exist. Right?!!' Philip thought to himself as Ada ran into the sunset.
Later that night...
***
Right before Philip was about to jump out from the window of his home, his conscience began surfacing as he pushed it aside earlier, he was feeling really guilty about this, because this would be the very first action that he would take, that went up against his parent's teachings, and he's even doing it secretly at that.
But nevertheless, after walking back and forth, in his consideration for Ada's feelings who he already agreed to go with, and his curiosity got to the best of him.
So, he still went out...
He then moved about sneakily through the roofs of the houses of his neighbors to avoid those villagers who had been tasked to patrol this time.
Because although normally if one were to plan on sneaking out, the alleyways would be a better choice, while the roofs would be a bad choice since those patrolling in different areas will all be able to see you from different angles, plus the jumping around will also make a lot of noises, instead of in the alleyways where you could only just run into them one by one.
But it wasn't much of a trouble for Philip, considering his physicality, because one, he was fast enough to not be caught by naked eye, and two, the fast yet silent tap of his feet on the brick surface didn't even resonate the slightest hint of sound, even though it was one of the worst footings to travel silently on, but his feet almost never touched the ground, his airtime was just that high every time he runs.
Tap-Tap-Tap
In fact, he probably could arrive at their meeting place faster if he had tried harder, but just ran at the pace that he was most comfortable with.
Tap-Tap-Tap
...
Till finally, in the bask under the moonlight, in revel of the stars above, there was Ada waiting for him.
'But how could she have arrived there first? When he was absolutely certain that she was slower than him?' It was something that he wondered upon landing from the skies.
"Hi! Philip" Ada waved at him with a smile on her face.
But Philip just greeted at her back with a very stiff, "Yo."
They then headed east, the direction of where the humble abode of their current village chief is, this time Philip had to go a little bit slower, as to not leave behind Ada.
...
Whoosh! Whoosh!
They landed outside of the gates or fences outside of the farmlands that the Village Chief owns, they then easily jumped over it with ease, not even breaking a sweat.
"Hap!"
"Hap!"
Inside, no matter how much they've seen it, they couldn't hide their amazement of the three-story mansion that the village chief owned, because every house in the village except this one are all either two story tall or just one story tall.
But they couldn't get distracted by just this, they needed to accomplish their goal of seeing the amulet, so both their face went from astonished to as what the new generation would call it, E-Ehem "Locked in."
(The boomer narrator narrated.)
The wet muds and fertilizers surrounded them, so they had to tread very carefully as to not leave any footprints behind, because even though there was a stone path leading to the door of the mansion, it was obvious that it would be locked, which only meant one thing, they needed to get behind the house and enter through the windows, similar to how they both sneaked out their homes.
...
"Then let's open the windows" Ada said in a very quiet tone of voice.
She began using her wind mana to manipulate the air around them and to open the lock that was inside the window.
Swish! Swish!
It was easy as all the mechanism of the lock was just a metal hook and a hole in the wall, it was outdated.
Flick!
Upon unlocking the window ever so slightly, just enough so that their body could fit, they began crawling into the gaps to enter the house, after which they heard the loud snoring of the village chief, they were lucky that he had a normal sleep schedule and that he is not the type who likes to remain awake at night.
"Zzzzzzz!"
But here, came the real problem; after thoroughly searching and inspecting the entire mansion for about an hour and a half, they were not able to find anything, not even a clue, so they were now certain that the secret basement has got to be inside the Village Chief's room where he was sleeping, which meant that they had to sneak inside.
But this is a lot harder than it looks, first, there was the fact that were no windows or even any slight gaps to pass through, only the wooden door in front of them was the way in, plus there was the fact that should they try risking it, by opening the door, there might be a trap, or worse the door might creek causing the Village Chief to wake up, and confront them, exposing their real identities in the process.
"Zzzzzzz!"
But they were already there, so Philip being the fastest to be able to run while he opens the door, grabbed the knob and very slowly inched it open.
Creeeeek!
However, even if he did open it really carefully, the wooden door still shrieked in a short and high pitch manner, and for a moment the village chiefs snoring stopped, which left both of them frozen with a shocked expression on their faces.
"S-Shit" They both thought at the same time.
But as they were ready to dash away at full speed, seeing that the old man lying there peacefully was about to wake up, he unconsciously touched his face with his right hand.
...
All of sudden he opened his mouth once again and started snoring.
"Zzzzzzzz!"
The two then immediately proceeded to enter the room and quickly inspected it, and not even a minute had passed, both of them found the key hidden inside one of the secret compartments of the drawers in the room.
How were they able to find it easily? It's simple, because when Philip was rustling through one of the drawers, he heard a faint unusual clanging of metals and that's how he was able to conclude where the key is, and there were probably more secrets, but they were in a hurry.
And since they were both still panicked, they just ignored it, and just tried to finish what they came here for...
***
Now that just leaves the task of finding where the entrance of the basement is located, in a single glance as they looked around the room, there was nothing unusual about the floor, so they searched around more thoroughly, however they were able to find nothing.
But that was until when they checked under the bed and felt the difference of the floor, from a rough surface to a smooth surface, furthermore Philip sensed that this part of the floor was more humid than the other.
So, he tapped every inch of where he felt that raspy sensation until he was able to make out a square, and in the process finding out where the hole is, after which he very carefully inserted the key.
Click! Clack!
Both of them held the wooden entrance firmly, so that it does not swing open downwards and make a lot of noise, after which they crawled in.
Philip held it first to let Ada enter since he was the stronger of the two, and then Ada, from the inside, held it to then let Philip pass through.
...
As Ada conjured and maintained a fire spell to light up the basement, they were surprised to see that the interior was actually cleaner than they originally assumed, the books and certain classified documents were neatly sorted through, without a speck of dust in them, this could only mean that the chief have been maintaining them well over the years.
But they didn't have time to look through them, so instead their attention was focused on the pristine glass jar that was a bit moisty on the outside, and without confirming it, just from a glance one could assume that the mechanism seemed to function for preserving something inside it.
Then as they got closer to it and grabbed it, they saw that there were freshly marked creases on the side of its lid, meaning that it has been recently opened and that it was meant to be opened, as they also saw a bottle right next to it, with the instruction "Don't forget to apply three times a day"
So, they assumed that they could touch whatever was inside, with that information at hand they quickly shrugged off the moist outside.
Wipe-Wipe!
Wipe-Wipe!
And inside what revealed was a blood red six leafed clover, it was wrapped around with intricate webs of thin sheets of silver ropes to make it wearable as a necklace. The combination of the two, made it look like an ominous mystical artifact that held dark secrets, as if it was cursed by a powerful entity.
However, the two were fearlessly curious, so Ada who was holding the jar opened it and was the first one to touch it.
Rustle!
But the moment her skin came into contact with the leaf, it rapidly withered-
"H-Hey what do we do now?" Ada looked at Philip with fear in her eyes, as if she knew that it was that moment that she knew she fucked up.
"D-Don't ask me that, I don't know!" Philip also panicked along with her, but inside him there was this lingering feeling, an instinct as if there was something he could do.
So, Philip asked Ada if he could hold it too, "Hey give it to me"
"W-What are you planning to do with it?" Ada with her hands shaking handed over the amulet to Philip.
"Shhh! Just don't ask questions" As Philip took it from her hands.
He then gently pressed around the withered clover, and he felt a connection between it and his mana, so he poured his mana into it...
But the plant wasn't just satisfied with his mana, so after him pouring in more, the clover squeezed out tiny red liquids from its body.
The red liquids then became tentacle like hands, it gave Philip a weird feeling because it was scary but at the same time cute because of its size.
But that cute thought was quickly eradicated when it sliced a tiny flab of Philip's skin and absorbed the single drop of blood that came from the wound.
Drip!
The plant became like a paper that was crumpled and was being put back to its original form, it slowly rejuvenated and was brought back from verge of death.
Crumple! Crackle!
...
The leaf finished its resurrection and looked like as if it was good as new.
Both of them then quickly put back everything that they touched back to where it was placed, and just sneakily went outside of the house to run as fast as they could, the adrenaline was still circling through their veins, as they burst out laughing at what they just did.
"HAHAHAHAHAHA"
"HAHAHAHAHAHA"
However, even if they revived the six leafed clover, it was still a question on whether they actually restored the clover back to its original form, as they detected the loud stomping rushing towards them from the south side forest of the village, at least from their honed senses.
CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!
Both of them stopped laughing as they immediately went quiet, they then had an expression that could be summed up with two words "OH SHIT!"
...