-=Plush POV=-

A short while later Shiona and I were still sitting under the tree while everyone else had huddled up and taken a nap on the other side of the same tree.

Well, other than Litly who was still in Shiona’s bag and Buddy who was still sitting in Shiona’s hair.

“Man,-” Started Shiona. “-I wish I had a skill like that back on earth, would’ve made cleaning the room so much easier.”

There’s been a lot of things that Shiona have been saying since we came to this world that I haven’t understood but just this once she actually said something that I could completely agree on without misunderstanding anything.

“Speaking of skills-” I say and show Shiona another page of the book.

Ghostly Haunting

Ghosts have always been known to appear from certain places in folklore, so why shouldn’t you be able to?

Allows you to teleport to and from places associated with the appearance of ghosts, such as closets, beneath beds and at graveyards or morgues..

You can only appear somewhere during times when ghosts are thought to appear there, such as dusk or midnight.

You can only appear in places you have a connection with, such as places you’ve been or places where people you’re acquainted with currently are..

You can only bring with you objects that ghosts in folklore are known to either take or leave during emergence or disappearance.

“-I was wondering if you could help me understand what this means?”

“Hang on, let me see that.” Answered Shiona and took a look in the book (AN: I’m so sorry)

She seemed to read through it a couple of times before looking up and saying-

“I think I understand, but I’ll need someone’s help to know exactly what you’ll be able to do with it.”

“Anything I can help with?”

“No, I need someone from ‘here’.”

“Ah.”

“Speaking of ‘here’, we still don’t know what this place is called do we?”

“Nope.”

“Anyways,-” Shiona brought the conversation back on track. “-think back to when you were little, where you ever scared of ghosts or monsters appearing from under your bed or inside your closet?”

“Well I had a shelf for clothe rather than a closet and I always stored crates of Lego under my bed so there was never any room, so I didn’t really worry that much about that.”

“Tch, lucky… Anyways you’ve heard stories about ghosts and monsters appearing from there at least right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well this skill would let you teleport from places like that, under peoples’ beds and within their closets to other beds and closets, or anything else that you hear about ghosts appearing. Well, as long it’s near someone you know and it’s night or halloween or something.”

“I see. But why do you need help, it sounds like you already know what it does.”

“Well the thing is that we don’t really know a lot of ghost stories from ‘here’ now do we? What if ghosts are seen completely differently here than they were back home, like, I dunno, maybe ghosts appear from holy or comforting places like churches or stuff instead of scary places like damp forests and caves.”

“Do you really think that that’s a thing?”

“What, do you have something on your mind?”

“Well, it’s just that…”

“Yeah?”

“Well all the ghost stories and fairytales back home were made for a reason right? Like stories that were made to scare kids from doing things that could harm them like running into forests at night. I mean, it’s not like they were made completely by chance, humans made them for a reason so they shouldn't be that different.”

“Maybe, but keep in mind that, ghosts actually exist in here, who knows what kinds of things they’ve done over the centuries that have gone down into folklore and fairytales and changed them.”

“... I suppose…”

“Well now that we’re done with that I’ve got to ask; what happened with your finger? And how long have you had that tail?” Shiona asked and took a sip out of a mug of water.

“Ah… Ah!”

*Pfff* “Wh-what!? Did something happen!?”

“Today has been to eventful, I completely forgot to tell you what happened yesterday while you guys were gone…”

“Wait something happened yesterday!? Did someone break in while we were gone!?”

“No no, calm down a bit-”

Then I told Shiona about that the school which I still didn’t know the name of, about what happened during the opening ceremony, the goat girl, Beaky, Bob and K’mill as well as what happened after I came back and woke up.

“Fucking hell. Basically you’re saying you’ll be awake eight hours longer than us every night from now on?”

“I certainly hope not, K’mill said teachers only really held classes for about four hours, the rest of the day the students were left to self study.”

“Self study? They really think that students are going to study on their own?”

“Well who knows, though I only met one student so I don’t really know what they’re like but apparently only the most promising students were allowed to come study at this place, the cream of the crop or whatever, so they should be able to handle themselves… I hope… Well that aside what were you and Cy up to yesterday?”

“Uhm, well… We may have sort of raided the royal castle for hidden treasure…?”

*sigh*

“Well that aside!”

‘That’s not something you can just say ‘that aside’ about!’ I wanted to retort but held it back.

“You said something earlier about a voice of someone you didn’t recognise while you were in the book, did you ever check if anyone new showed up on that familiar list?”

“No, I guess I probably should.”

“Yup.”

*flap flap*

Eager to please as always the book which was still in my hands opened to the page I wanted on its own.

Familiars

Due to various circumstances these creatures have become one with the Book of Knowledge, you can either summon them as companions or temporarily gain powers depending on the familiar.

Mutated Human (Elizabeth)

Behemoth Spider (Cy Tha Adel)

Tropical Acid Slime (Barry Greymoon)

“Barry Greymoon?”

“Why, what a fancy and pompous sounding name. I betcha he’s a right twat.”

I could hear Lizz chuckling to herself from the other side of the tree we’re all leaning on but I decided to ignore it.

“Should I try bringing him out?”

“Well maybe you should try just talking to him normally first, you know like you sometimes do with Lizz and Cy.

“Good idea…”

I stopped talking.

“Did something happen?” Asked Shiona, however I was too surprised by what a saw to give an immediate response.

“... What happened to Litly?”

From Shiona’s shoulder bag Litly emerged drowsily and rested her head on Shiona’s lap.

“Oh, that. Yeah I’m not sure what caused it but I think she had an overnight growth spurt.”

“...Okay? I don’t remember there being anything about something like that in the chimera book we bought back in Eastern lake city…”

“I guess they really were ripping us off then huh?”

“Probably.”

“Either that or we discovered something new, wouldn’t that be nice?”

“It would be nice, sure, but she’s just grown a bit though? I mean, how could no one else have discovered they they grow bigger when they get older?”

“Well that depends, what if it wasn’t just normal growth?”

“Shiona you know I’m not savvy with all this fantasy stuff, please just tell me what you mean.”

“Aw, you’re no fun… But fine, what I mean is: what if we did something to cause this?”

“And that something would be?” I asked, still very tired after what happened today.

“Well that is the question isn’t it? Maybe it has something to do with the meat we let her eat at Biff’s beef yesterday? Well enough of that, we still need to find out more about this Barry fellow and you still need to fix your clothes, I’d help but you now I suck at sewing.”

“Alright.”

‘I’ve never spoken properly to Barry before so I don’t really know what to expect, but it’s worth a shot right? Barry?’ I asked, hoping someone was going to respond.

…

…

…

Then finally came an answer.

“Shiona I think he’s sleeping.”

“Really? Do slimes even need to sleep?”

“How should I know? I’m not the fantasy fan here.”

“Fair enough, I guess we’ll just wait with meeting Barry then.”

“Yeah, and I suppose we should probably go meet the elves again as well, we never really decided when we were going to leave.”

I get up from where we were sitting and call to the others on the other side of the tree.

“Ronnie, Lizz, it’s time to go.” I say, but I don’t receive any response so I look to the other side of the tree and see-

“...su…”

-Lizz sleeping on top of a sleeping Ronnie.

“Well,-” I say and look to Shiona. “- I still need to fix my clothes and there’s no time like the present right?”

I sit back down with Shiona and take out the sewing kit to start fixing my clothes.

Also while doing that I found out it’s very convenient to have cloth fingers which don’t bleed when you accidentally prick yourself with a needle.

* * * * *

…

…

…

*clip*

“...There we go, all done.” I say as I make the final cut on the final string after finishing the final seam on my purple onesie.

“Now then, shall we get going?” I then ask everyone else.

Lizz and Litly both yawn before going back to sleep and being picked up by Shiona and Ronnie respectively.

“Right, think the elves are still in the market selling pizza?” Asks Shiona as she carefully puts Litly inside her shoulderbag.

“Should be,-” Answers Ronnie before smelling the air. “-I can still smell the freshly baked pizza all the way over here.”

“Well let’s go then shall we?” I ask once more, both Shiona and Ronnie nod and we start walking back the way we came.

* * * * *

“Hey.” I greeted the elves as we returned.

“Oh, you’re back, right on time as well.” Answered the still armor wearing Kosei.

Shiona and Ronnie seemed to up their guard, possibly worried Kosei was going to put me on pizza duty again, however-

“We just finished making everything we needed, made enough money for the fuel as well as a bunch for the trip. In fact, we were in the middle of packing everything up and I was just about to send Shro here to find you.”

“What!?” Shouted Shro seemed to have just finished packing everything away and had just sat down to rest.

“Oh calm down, they came on their own so no worries.”

“Easy for you to say…”

“Anyways-” Said Kosei and turned back to us. “we just finished preparing and we’re ready to go whenever you are.”

“We’re pretty much done as well, or at least I think so.” I say and look to Shiona and Ronnie.

Lizz was still sleeping on Ronnie’s head so she couldn’t really answer.

“Yeah, I don’t have anything else I need to do here.”

“Me neither.”

Answered both of them, in response the two elves start walking and we follow them to their carriage.

Fallis was already inside when we entered.

Specifically she was dead drunk on the table.

“Alright Shro, you remember the bet.”

“Bet?” Asks Shiona.

“Yeah, we settled who was going to drive us back to the village after we picked you guys up, you can probably guess it but Shro here lost.”

“No I didn’t, My brother Rosh lost but apparently him having a wife back home gave him an excuse to stay and not have to drive for three days.”

“Yes and then we made another bet, which you lost.”

“That’s because you cheated! You buffed that seagull with magic!”

“When did I ever say we couldn’t use magic? Well enough of this, we’re wasting time so let’s go already!” Answered Kosei, to which Shro grumbled loudly and Fallis snored.

I felt tempted to ask what they had made the seagull do however I decided to refrain.