Safety?

Linfeng found the journey to be suspiciously calm and unobstructed. Even if his escape had been successful, he was doubtful that it had been so good that Edrick would have completely lost them.

As such, the quartet made a lot of illogical movements, just in case they were being secretly followed, but by the time they arrived at the mountain borders, nothing had happened at all. Not even a trace of a pursuer had been spotted.

‘Did I actually shake Anoteros off? Just in case, I’ll make sure that we enter Yen’mila’s safe spot discreetly…’

The trip through the mountains was harder, especially when he was carrying Fingmi most of the time, but the difficulty was only brought upon by the terrain and the need to avoid fighting beasts and monsters roaming around. Once again, no pursuer showed up, even though the progress of the group was far from swift.

It worried Linfeng, but worry was all he could do.

Eventually, they arrived in a place that seemed to be only a regular area of the rocky mountains. It wasn’t even a cradled forest or plains, just rock and stone like they had been seeing this entire time.

Yen’mila casually leaned against Linfeng’s shoulder to whisper something to him.

“You probably can’t feel it, but it’s right in front of us… I’ll tie you guys to vines to lead you into it”

She finished her sentence by giving a quick peck on the cheek, manifesting vines that wrapped around the midsection of everyone present.

The plant cultivator then seemingly walked straight into a wall–Only to pop out of existence right as she was about to hit it. Using only sight, it would have seemed like her vines vanished alongside her, yet everyone was able to clearly feel their presence, especially as they tugged, indicating that Yen’mila wanted them to follow after her and move toward the wall.

“How bizarre… Is this one of those super illusory arrays that are so well-hidden that whatever they project to hide is so realistic that people bump into them based on nothing but their own perception of the wall being real?”

Mala scratched his head in thought as he walked up to the wall, only to actually bump into it.

“Ah! This bitch… I bet she did it on purpose-!”

Just as the twink said this, the unseen vine pulled him harder, and this time, he disappeared just like Yen’mila had.

“Let’s go, Fingmi”

Linfeng grabbed his Alrinir’s hand and walked alongside her to the wall, where they vanished without a trace as well. Just before they disappeared, however, a small insect flew off of Fingmi’s back, rushing away in a near-straight line…

They were blinded at first, but their eyes quickly adapted to the light, as they soon realised that they weren’t in the border mountains anymore. They were instead on a lush plain overflowing with tall grass, flowers, and all kinds of plants, ranging from mundane to filled with energy.

A small time of adaptation was needed as nature energy was abundant, whilst other energies were in a lesser quantity compared to normal.

The first thing Linfeng noticed upon arriving was Yen’mila and Mala bickering.

“You let me hit that damned wall on purpose, didn’t you?”

“Of course”

“You aren’t even denying it!”

“Why would I? I am quite proud of my prank”

“You’re such a bitch, Yen’mila”

“We are both bitches, Linfeng’s bitches!”

“Idiot! Don’t say that in front of his Alrinir!”

“Oh, I see that you’re using the new words as well, heh?”

“Why wouldn’t I? Everyone has started using them recently”

They were going back and forth, but Fingmi’s attention instead fell on the grandiose scenery. They were in a huge field flourishing with plant life. Trees of all sizes and shapes were dispersed throughout it all, alongside herds of beasts none of them, except for the plant cultivator, had ever seen before.

Most of all, overlooking everything from the center was an absolutely massive tree whose scale was hard to fathom without a proper reference, but it was undoubtedly gigantic. It resembled an oak, but with orange leaves.

The place felt magical and utterly novel to Fingmi.

Yen’mila cleared her throat.

“Welcome to Natucor. It’s a secret realm I got sucked into back in the day. It’s where I found the technique I am practising–Call Of The Woods. I guess it recognised me as worthy or something like that? Anyway, I have a small amount of authority–In the sense that I can sense where its entrance is, as well as lock or open said entrance to other people”

Yen’mila puffed her chest.

“It was closed, but I can get in and out as I please… Isn’t this place great? It’s a pretty small realm. If you walk away from the big tree in the middle, you’ll quickly find the edge. Whether you look up or down, it will just be a blue sky, and at night, it will be a starless void... But we do have our own sun and moon here!”

She seemed quite happy about dishing out explanations about things no one asked about.

“The moon is always super bright here, so you can see clearly even at night. Also, the empty void is actually not very big. If you reach the edge, though, you’ll get teleported to the opposite side. Same thing if you fall into the void, actually”

Fingmi spoke in a low tone upon hearing this.

“Did… Did you fall before…?”

“Well… I didn’t throw myself into it out of nowhere! There were actually a bunch of explanations alongside the manual for Call Of The Woods, and so… I tried some of them. If you fall into the void, you’ll get teleported to the highest possible spot right above where you fell, but you’ll be floating until you touch ground. It’s actually super fun once you get over the scare it gives you to fall toward a seemingly eternally empty upside-down sky”

“I… I see!”

Fingmi actually looked quite curious about it, but was too scared to actually try it on the spot. She just kept holding onto Alrin’s arm.

She held onto Linfeng quite strongly, in fact. Pressing her body against his rippling muscles.

‘She… She has grown a little bit, it seems…’

Looks like Edrick didn’t starve her, indeed. Though it seems she’s only grown in her womanly areas, instead of growing in height

Linfeng indeed felt like Fingmi was shorter than he remembered, but that was due to the fact that he had grown taller and larger himself. She seemed so much more fragile than he remembered, and her behaviour was more withdrawn than it used to be, even if she was always a bit like that.

‘That bastard definitely did do things to her…’

He rubbed his Alrinir’s head to comfort her. All the while, Yen’mila kept on explaining things about this realm.

Such as the fact that all creatures here were herbivorous, and that there was a distinct lack of predators. Though she didn’t forget to mention that even deer would eat birds if given the occasion to, and that the same was true about the creatures here. Although they were herbivorous, they wouldn’t say no to a bit of flesh here and there.

Though they definitely wouldn’t hunt anything the size of humans to eat. They probably wouldn’t even want to eat humans on account that humans were completely new and bizarre to them.

Also, since Yen’mila had successfully cultivated Call Of The Woods, all living creatures inside this space seemed subservient to her in some way. At the very least, they would go as far away from her as possible.

“Also… I didn’t stay for long last time I was here, and would just sleep near the big tree… Should we build something for ourselves?”

Linfeng rolled up his sleeves.

“Let’s make sure it’s a good place to stay”