Chapter 46: Tech and creatures

It was still early morning when they arrived in their town so their Inn had already been open.

The ’clones’ were doing their work already, and if they were to appear at a time like this, things would have gotten pretty complicated. So, they first brought Arcos to their base in the underground through a backdoor.

Arcos, seeing the simplicity of the town, first thought that this place was a setup by these people as well. But they soon understood that this was just a simple town where common people lived.

These people were hiding in this place, and the so-called secret base that they had was in a more uncommon place than what one may expect.

"You’ve created an expanded space, haven’t you? This space is not supposed to be this big?" He spoke the moment they got in their underground base, his eyes alit from the things that he was seeing around him.

"Yup~. Isn’t this place pretty cool?" Beth was especially cheery to hear praise of her creation. She liked this place quite a bit. In fact, she wanted to go around now that she was here and show their different rooms to him one by one.

"Wow..." While the young prince couldn’t calculate the scale of this place or the limit to which it was expanded, he could tell it wasn’t done through ordinary magical practice.

There was a deeper, more fundamental thing at play here.

It reminded him of the various barriers that Beth had used during their time together, as well as the strange magical abilities that the rest of them possessed.

They were using items and unique tools, but just how amazing were these unique tools? And where did they even get them to begin with?

"If you’re interested, she’ll teach you all about building a castle inside a space no bigger than a peanut shell." Andrew said, a smile lingering on his face as he put away the branch of the world tree in a container already present on the table before picking it up and looking back at the boy.

"Do you wanna come along and see our treasure room?" He offered to the young boy, and there was no way he would refuse it so the boy nodded to him, watching the other ladies go right inside different walls that didn’t even have doors.

’Is the whole place also covered in some kind of illusion?’ he wondered, a strange hesitation still present inside his heart.

But he just shook his head, taking a deep breath as he ran behind Andrew who hadn’t stopped for him.

"Just walk behind me," he advised as he approached a part of the wall as well, and without looking back to see if the young prince was following him, he walked right inside the wall.

"Ehhh..." The prince was hesitant but he walked into the metallic white wall behind Andrew as well, and while his eyes were closed when he took that step, as he didn’t collide into anything even after taking a few more steps, he finally opened his eyes.

And when he did, he found himself in a place far beyond his wildest dreams.

"What...?"

They were in a rainforest.

A damp forest covered by damp trees, with a few dark clouds above them.

They were in their main hall, the place where they said they trained, ate, and did the briefings, but now they were inside the place where they stored their trophies, if they were just trophies for them, firstly.

But this was not a treasure house filled with rows of shelves or a museum of artifacts that he was expecting. This also wasn’t some walled room where they may have stored items as precious as the branch of the world tree that his family had protected for over three hundred years.

This was a forest. And in the skies of this forest, right now, he could see a familiar flying horse, the holy creature that he had seen just a while ago.

"Hmm?" But the Pegasus was not the only inhabitant of this place. Right around him in the sky, the prince saw a bird.

A giant, yellow feathered bird with spiky features, ornamented body covered in golden jewels, and a voice so thunderous there could only be one creature that could possibly produce a voice like that.

"Is that... a Thunderbird?" Another creature of stories, a being that his family prayed to.

"Yup. That’s Thyme. Few of his kind are left in this world now." Andrew looked up and blew a whistle, calling the two creatures on the ground.

They heard him instantly even though they seemed to be far above in the sky, playing, almost fighting against one another.

But when they came to the ground, the pegasus was back to his smaller form, still winged, and still blue, but he was smaller.

And just like him, the bird that seemed twice the height of the original pegasus that he saw when they were flying, was also much smaller.

In fact, the bird had become so small it seemed like a small hawk as it came and sat on his forearm, electricity still crackling around its body.

"Thyme, I know Swing must have told you already, but this is Arcos. Our new member." Andrew tickled the underside of the bird’s body, unaffected by the electric energy around its body.

He even took out something from his pocket and fed it, something that the bird seemed to like tremendously.

It was so happy while in his hands that no one would believe him if he told them this was a creature that was called a Bird of Death, massacre, and destruction.

"Treee?" When Andrew offered Arcos to hold her, the boy instantly shook his head, not knowing a single thing about handling these mythical creatures.

He had just arrived here, he didn’t want to cause any trouble.

"Thyme is the calmest one here. The others might not be so friendly at first so it’s fine." Andrew insisted, giving the boy a hint about the obvious.

These two weren’t the only creatures he was going to see in this forest. So, the young prince prepared his heart as he saw the happy smile of the creature his father would have bowed down to.