“We’re here.” Archie smiled while looking at the base before them.
“Holy shit!” Silas was flabbergasted as he looked at the ground, perplexing everyone around him.
There wasn’t a base in front of them. They were just standing before a particularly large cave that led nowhere.
However, one glance down with mystic eyes, and a whole world seemed to unfold before his very eyes.
Towering buildings, hundreds if not thousands of life forces moving around throughout the entire city, beasts, animals. It was all underground, yet due to mystic eyes, he could see almost all of it.
The entire city seemed to have been placed on top of an enormous tree. Silas didn’t understand why since it made them easier targets,
‘Holy shit what is that?’ Silas tried to narrow his eyes in order to better see the lifeform he didn’t recognize. Its lifeforce looked similar to that of a human, but it also had a beastlike appearance in it too.
While Archie narrowed his eyes at Silas’ antics, Seraphina slapped the back of Silas’ head before speaking with a commanding voice-
She then walked past Silas a stood in front of her everyone with her hands on her hips. She quickly performed a head count of everyone in the group before staring at Silas one more time and nodding.
“Healers, come with me. Scouts, go with Death. The rest of you know where to go. Evergreen, stay with Archie and I’ll take Nymira with me.”
“Evergreen?” Silas raised a brow.
“We’re now at the main base. I have seniority over you, so technically, I am your supervisor for now. You must treat me with respect, and I will reciprocate. We are no longer on first name basis unless we are in private.” She spoke with a commanding and serious tone.
“Yes, ma’am.” Silas saluted, causing everyone to look at him weirdly again.
‘Do these people not salute? I’ve seen plenty of people in this world salute. Does it not mean the same thing as it does on earth? Did I just swear at her?’ Silas’ eyes darted around for answers, yet everyone simply shrugged and went on with their own business.
The groups quickly split into three, and when they finally did, Alex, Archie, and Seraphina all went to different trees and placed their hands on them for a few seconds.
Silas could see something glowing within the tree momentarily before they finally lifted their hands from it. When they did, Silas saw a green handprint where Archie had placed his hand, and the same seemed to be happening everywhere else.
‘Biological technology? That’s new…’ Silas thought with a glimmer in his eyes.
It was the first time he got to see some sort of real technology since coming to this world. These barbaric people didn’t even have toilets, so Silas lost all hope in them within less than a year of living.
However, now a spark of curiosity ignited in his eyes and made him feel an intense desire to learn more.
‘Shit! Control yourself moron.’ Silas breathed in and out to calm himself, but suddenly, he felt the ground under them shift before the feeling of them slowly descending made him open his eyes.
It wasn’t an elevator… Or, at least, it didn’t feel like an elevator.
It felt more alive. He didn’t understand it in any way, but when he saw what was allowing them to descend, he finally understood.
An enormous tree root slowly carried their plot of land to a certain height, connecting to another inanimate root that worked as a bridge.
“Alright. Game, come with me.” Archie looked back at Silas and waved him over. While they all took the long root bridge, when they reached the end of it, everyone said their farewells and split off into different groups, Silas and Archie going as their own little group.
“It’s amazing, right?” Archie asked.
“It’s beyond amazing…” Silas replied in amazement.
That same enormous tree seemed to be in the center of this city as well. Its roots began exactly where the city’s floors began and seemed to stretch out throughout the entire city’s grounds, going under buildings and creating everything from bridges to pillars in order to sustain the platform the city was built on.
“Is this a ravine?” Silas asked, his eyes darting around and inspecting random things in the enormous cave.
There were several sources of light throughout the entire city, ranging from insects to plants, and in some cases, even mana stones illuminated the city from above, shining with a milky white radiance.
“I’m pretty sure it’s just a really big cave. We did excavate a lot of it out but it was originally pretty big.” Archie explained while catching an insect between his fingertips without killing it.
“Was this made recently?” Silas raised a brow.
“No. I wasn’t even alive when this cave was made. Though, or previous commander did teach me a lot about this place’s history.” Archie played with the bug a little more. It was blue in color, and shone with the radiance of a candle flame, if not even brighter.
“Why did you betray him then?” Silas asked with narrowed eyes. If Archie was so willing to betray his old commander, that had essentially taken care of him since he was a child, wouldn’t he find it easy to do the same to Silas?
“Silas… Let me tell you a life lesson.” Archie muttered with a low voice so no one would hear him call Silas by his real name.
“Just because someone raised you, doesn’t mean they deserve your respect.”
“I get it…” Silas muttered unconsciously.
“My dad once told me something.” He quickly saved the situation by pretending he wasn’t talking about himself.
“Every kid deserves a parent, but not even parent deserves a kid.” Silas sighed.
“Bullseye.” Archie chuckled.
Silas knew the bad parent situation more than anyone else.
His previous parents abandoned him on the streets like he was nothing but a piece of trash. While the orphanage owners were nice to him, but the maids that worked there were less than accommodating.
They would say- “You think you’re better than me just because you can read?”- And if Silas were, to be honest, he did feel like he was better than them. No… He knew he was better than them, and that wasn’t even his ego talking.
What kind of adult takes out their anger about their failure of a life on a helpless child?
They would let the other orphans beat the living crap out of him, and by then, society had already gone down the drain, so petty matters like these stopped mattering to the police.
The abuse was endless, and the only release he had was books. Maybe that was why he got so invested in them in the first place. Then he got adopted, but his foster parents were probably the worst of the bunch.
‘Well… At least I got to torture them for a few days. If only I didn’t try creating mustard gas. Imagine how much more fun I would have had with them.’ Silas sighed.
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