Infinitum Crystals - The Deadly Maidens [3]

Side Story 4.2 - Rider - Sacred Black Tortoise

We have finally arrived to the village that the girl, Mei had told us. Blax, who was out cold after using up all of his Infinitum energy to warm us up for the night had been sent to the village's Inn. Hosuke and Airi immediately headed to the bed as soon as we arrived to the Inn. Which leaves me and Mei to get some food. We ended up eating a simple bowl of soup with bread.

"How's the soup?" Mei asked me.

I'm surprised she would talk to me. For context, this was probably the first time we ever had a real conversation besides the occasional ordering around throughout this journey. She usually just talk with Blax but even that was not a lot of talking from her according to what Blax said. She was indeed mysterious with how much she's not saying anything at all.

I replied after sipping a spoon of soup from the bowl, "It's decent enough. The bread is a bit hard though."

"Must be the cold weather or something."

I agreed, "Could be. I'm no bread expert, of course."

And that was kinda our first proper conversation. Not much of a revelation besides me showing some form of interest to talk to someone. Then again, I'm fine talking with anyone. Unlike, Hosuke or White. Those two would probably talk as little as they could. But that was not just what we talked about.

Mei suddenly asked me, "You know where we are?"

She asked as if I know the answer. In fact, I do know the answer. She probably realized it when I was talking with the Innkeeper a few minutes ago.

"They called the village, Turtle Rock...I wonder why..." I said so in a rather unsurprising tone.

"You can tell by its name, right?" She confirmed my suspicion and continued, "Yes, this village was named after the legendary black tortoise, Xuan Wu."

"So is the pillar over here or something? I don't see it at all, to be honest."

"Of course you won't notice it. But you did notice that this village is placed at a cliff right?"

"Yeah." Then I realized, "Wait, you don't mean..."

She nodded and at that point I know what she was going to say. But I end up letting her say it.

"Yup. The pillar is down there at the bottom of the cliff."

I questioned her, "But why at the bottom of the cliff though? Is there something special down there?"

"There isn't really anything down there. It's not often that we get to choose where something big would fall. Not even if its a prophecy or something."

Hmm, I'm surprised she has some sort of sass from her. I figured she would be more proper but I guess my first impression was wrong after talking with her for a while.

I continued the conversation with her, "Why is the village named after the tortoise?"

"That's because it is the village guardian."

"Wait. Isn't that a bad thing considering what we're about to do?"

Mei sighed and told me, "I know it sounds scummy. The fact that we're a couple of unknown people coming into this village and decided to capture their guardian sounds really like a bad idea. But you don't need to worry about that, Rider. Just trust in me."

"Trust in you?" It was as this moment when I started to be harsh to her, "I don't really know you and I have to trust you on something that I don't even know what's going to happen. In fact, given the context, this doesn't sound morally good at all."

"Wel..." She was at a lost for words of course. But she retaliated by saying, "What do you know about morals, Rider? Aren't you responsible for some of your friends not together anymore?"

"Excuse me?"

All of a sudden. She went personal. It infuriated me. But that's not the least of my worry. What caught me a lot was how does she know something that happened way before we met.

I asked her, "How do you know that? Did someone told you about this?"

"You don't need to know that, Rider. It's better if you just look in front of you. Isn't that what Lore told you?"

"What?" How does she know that name.

"Well, in any case. We don't really have to discuss about this for too long. We have a mission and a prophecy to withheld." She got up and left me to my own device.

Somehow, someway, the girl knows something about me. As a matter of fact, she also probably knows something about the others but I can't confirm that yet. Then again, Blax was probably the one who told her that. But still, when she said the thing about what I know about being morally good, that kinda hurt me a little. It made me remind of a mistake I made way back in my high school time. It was temporary but it did happen. What simply was that I got into a fight with my best friend Lore Pidea, he left Team Stardust but only temporarily after I finally forgiven him. But what lead to the breakup really pressed my button. Because it really shows how stupid I was and I kinda hate looking back at the old me.

But in any case, now that I've heard those thing from Mei. I'm starting to feel intrigue about where will our situation go as we progress through the rest of the legendary monsters. Here's hoping it doesn't lead us to a bad mistake like what I did in the past.

TO BE CONTINUED