It’s been a while since we stopped moving. I need to wake her up. I wanted to know what’s in the bag after all.

“Sasaki? Wake up”

I called her right beside her ear. She should be able to hear that.

She reacted. Then, she slowly raise her head up. She was squinting and frowning with eyes directed toward me. Her eyes still look as puffy as before, but less red than when she cried. Her hair was in a mess.

“We need to get going”

“To where?"

“I don’t know, but we need to move forward.”

“...”

“Don’t you want to go home?”

She was muted for a while. But then she nodded and stood on her feet in a blink.

“Okay! Let’s go find the exit” She clenched her hand with determination. Good thing that she listened to me. I couldn’t handle it if she throws tantrum again.

“Before that....” I raised my hand pointing at the bag on her back.

“Can I see what’s in your bag? Uhm... maybe we can use a thing or two”

She glanced at me with her eyes widened.

“Oh wow... I completely forgot about it!” She confessed while looking all shocked.

Never mind me for not realizing that bag, but how come the carrier forgot her own belonging? Didn’t she felt the weight on her back?

She moved the bag from her back to her chest. Then she unzipped the bag swiftly. She dug her hand in and grabbed something out, just like what I have anticipated. It was a bottle of water, but unfortunately with only a quarter left. We need to carefully divide it.

When I was thinking about rationing it, Sasaki opened her bottle and tilted it right above her opening mouth.

“Hey!”

I was too late. She poured in all the water into her mouth until the last drop, leave me hanging.

“Fuwaaaaa... I was so thirsty from all the running” She let out an exhilarating sigh without feeling any guilt.

I stared at her immensely.

“What”

She didn’t had any clue about what she just did.

“Are you thirsty? Oh ho.. No way I am going to share it with you. That would be an indirect k-kiss.” She stuttered at the end while turned her head to side showing only half of her face.

I can officially conclude that Sasaki is an idiot. Forget about that surviving skills she has. She couldn’t even think about something that basic.

I felt irritated knowing that an idiot actually, bullied me. I regretted for letting her did all those thing to me. Now that we are alone in this unknown place. I don’t have any reason to put up with her arrogant attitude anymore. What was my reason for allowing her to bully me in the first place anyway? I started to forget about it.

“Why do you keep staring at me!"

"Sasaki..." I gently called on her.

"What!" But she seemed to be irritated.

“Do you understand what you had done?”

She bit her lip while frowned and began to mull over the question.

"What! I was drinking water. How come I am guilty for drinking water? So, are you guilty for breathing?"

I face palmed inwardly.

She is the most idiotic person I've ever known. For real. I need to let her realize it by herself. Will she able to?

"Say... if you're thirsty again. What would you do?"

"I will-" She paused briefly and looking all confused while blinking her eyes.

"I will... drink again?" By now, she already realized her mistake. But, her pride won't allow her to admit it that easily.

Sigh...

"How?" I pressed on her again.

She showed a flustered face.

Running her mind deep, thinking of a way to encounter me, even though it was her mistake. Really. This girl can't be cured.

"Aaahh!! I don't know" She turned away and started moving forward, attempting to avoid my keen stare.

"We need to stop wasting time and precious energy for talking. We need to move forward. Don't you know that?" She claimed as if I am the one who is wrong.

She peeked at me, but she knew that I am not amused with that biased answer.

Oh well... I don't want to argue with her. It will be a waste of my energy.

While we were walking, Sasaki still digging into her bag. Then she pulled out a small thin black metal thing.

It was a smartphone.

"Arrghh.... it's not working!" She complained while punching the power button with her finger repeatedly.

I had the hunch about that anyway. Back when before we came into this passage. I didn't see anyone using their phone. So, I had guessed that all of the smartphones were probably broken or can't be used in this place.

She tossed that broken device back over her shoulder, without any hesitation shown on her face. That expensive looking device thudded on the ground. Screen facing down.

I thought nowadays people couldn’t live without phone. But she can easily tossed it away.

I wished that I have my bag on me. I guess the only things that would follow us were the ones that stuck close to our body as we teleported. In my case, only my cloth.

Speaking of my clothing, I really had to get something changed. It was kind of... airy down there. It feels uncomfortable.

But, there's no way I could find another clothing in this place, could I?

"Ahh! I have my PE uniform in the bag!" Sasaki pulled out her PE uniform, right at the perfect timing. Is she an esper?

"Yay! I can change this smelly uniform out" She stopped walking and put down her bag then spread out that red training suit.

I stared at her again, this time, glancing from the corner of my sight.

"W-what again!!" She stuttered. Then she looked at me from top to bottom, reminded her of what she did to me.

"Ah.. Geezzzz!!" She threw her PE uniform to me.

Good thing that our school's PE uniform is unisex. On top of that, I have roughly the same weight and height with Sasaki.

"You owe me one! No, you owe me two to be exact” She smirked.

"Go further. Don’t let me see you changing!” She commanded me as I walked away.

A turning point could be seen not far from me, so I decided to go behind that wall. It was around 5 to 8 meters away. Sasaki should just follow me and waited right beside that wall. But, she didn’t. She stood there digging her bag. I will look into that later.

“Be quick!” She added.

As I move closer to the turning point, I heard some voices. It was a faint whispering or hissing to be exact. I was immediately put into alert. Wondering what was it.

I started tip toeing my way there.

Curiosity hit me, I wanted to know what made that sound. But, I don’t want to agitate any of it/them.

I reached the side of the wall with hand clutching on wall, I slowly moved my head out of the wall and stopped at the moment I can see clearly.

Hiisssssssss............

It was no longer a passage. That turning point lead to another big cave.

It was darker than the previous cave added with a lot of spikes on the ceiling. The terrain of this cave was uneven and rocky. The temperature is lower here and there was a bit of haze in the air. I scanned at the surrounding and finally found the source of the sound. I immediately hid behind the wall upon seeing that. Trying to sort out what I saw.

I can say that I have a good news and a bad news.

The good news is that I saw a big pool of water, no, a small sized lake to be precise. If it was an open lake, then we can follow the stream and might be able to find a way out. There are lots of possibility now that a lake surfaced in the sight. It was indeed a great discovery. Furthermore, I saw a few entrance branched out from the back of the cave.

Another thing is that we could solved my earlier worry, the water supply. First, I need to make sure that the water is drinkable. After that, I need to look for more container for the water.

The bad news is...

There are three monsters.

They were laying on the center of the cave. They have long snake like body but with a dragon like head with long and sharp fangs gloriously exposed at the corner of their mouth. Their skin was covered with sturdy and coarse scales. They length about 4 to 7 meters. All three were intertwined with each other, curling up around a rocky hill at the center. Eyelids closed.

They seemed to be dormant at this moment.

“You! What are you doi-“

I turned around and swiftly pushed Sasaki to the side of the wall, with an arm on the wall and another one covering half of her face. Laying my face just an inch close to her. Her eyes widened. Her pupil contracted. She breathed in my palm.

“Mmfft!!”

I slowly peeked at the monsters from afar.

They are still asleep. Sigh...

I let out a short exhale while the tense on me faded. I dragged Sasaki all the way back until we reach far enough, to the spot where Sasaki once talked loudly without the monsters reacting. But still, we have to be aware now that I knew what’s behind the wall.

“Get your filthy hand off me!” She angrily shoved my hand, with a hint of flush painted on her cheeks.

“Ssshhhh... “

“What is it?” She leaned closer.

“There are monsters in there”

“W-What?” No way, we have to take another ro-”

Before she could finish her sentence, I cut her off.

“No. We will head in”

She gasped in disbelief.

“Are you nuts? Didn’t you say that there are monsters in there?” She complained.

“There is a lake in there, moreover I saw an entrance behind the cave. The lake seemed to be connecting with a stream to somewhere, that could be our way out.” I briefly explained.

“But the monster! What are you going to do with them. Kill them?” She shrieked at the idea.

The monsters seemed to be sleeping soundly. So...

“No, we will sneak around them”

“Huh?” She raised her brow and hung her mouth open to what I said.

I explained to her about the current condition of the monsters and the plan I have on mind. Even though they seemed to be fast asleep. Going around them still poised some risk. If the monsters wake up, it will be the end for us. But taking another route has different risk too. We could be ended up in an active monsters lair, or we could be ended up lost in this maze. Returning after all the energy spent on finding another place, is a dumb thing to do.

After all the walk with repeating scenery, discovering this cave was a big step forward.

“W-What are you doing!” Sasaki shrieked as I started pulling up my upper cloth.

Can’t you see that I am changing?

I don’t know why, but she started to get on my nerve. I mean, I’ve been facing her all this time. But, to be actually doing a ‘two way’ interaction with her, seriously putting me off more that I ever thought. I preferred myself to stay quiet rather than talking to her. But, for people as dense as her, need to be talked to reach a mutual understanding.

Anyway, that uniform of hers fit me quite well, a bit small but this will do. Still better than flaunting around with a skirt. This red jersey is my favourite school’s uniform.

I seriously thought that I will be stuck running around with that skirt until we got out from this maze, If we could. Luckily, I didn’t have to wait that long.

“Let’s go...”

“N-Now?”

Sasaki stiffened, couldn’t process what she heard, she dazed. Fear slowly engraved on her face. She was reminded of what happened in the previous cave. I can see her trembling. Cold sweat adorned her temple. I honestly thought she has already get over that, but she’s not. She didn’t show opposition, but doubt and fear filled her expression.

She’s still an ordinary high school girl after all.

I let out a sigh.

“Okay... I will let you prepare yourself first”

I let myself fall and sat on the ground, eyes closed. Trying to rest my sight for a bit.

I shouldn’t rush her.

A person as impetuous as her, can’t be perturbed when entrusted with a dangerous task. All I wanted her to do was to quietly follow my steps and go beyond the monsters. But, if she chose to stagger mid way. It will be problematic.

I should keep that in mind.

“Do you have anything else in your bag?”

“y-yeah... but they were useless things.” She crouched down, then she rotated her bag upside down, shook all her belonging down to the dirt ground.

A pencil case, few books, an empty bottle, wallet with worthless paper now, rubber bands, hair pins, handkerchief, a nail filer and a scissor.

“You have few good things here”

I pointed at the nail filer and the scissor respectively. Especially the scissor, which doesn’t look like a student allowed one. It doesn’t looked like a scissor that’s being used for cutting paper. The long, thin and sharp blade of it could easily clipped a thick firm meat into two clean pieces.

She must had used that for bullying purpose.

I need to distract her into thinking about something else than fear. So, that’s perfect.

“Say... why did you bully people”

She didn’t expect those words to came out from my mouth. The unsettling face of her became flabbergasted. She mulled over the question I randomly threw. Part of me, wanted to hear about it too. I don’t understand why would anyone bully another of their own kind, causing mental until physical harm to others.

That can be a worth while information, to learn about their state of mind. So, I can be better at guessing their next move.

Unexpectedly, she stayed quiet. I thought that she will get angry over that and started insulting me. But, she curled up to her own space and rested her chin on her knees. Her gaze felt empty for a moment.

Then, she moved her hand into her skirt’s pocket and pulled out a familiar article.

It was Kisaragi’s pendant.

The pendant was dangling down from Sasaki’s hand. Looking all the same as before, unscathed.

“I must return this”

She stared at the pendant closely, biting her lip.

“I must be cursed..”

I closely listened as she spoke.

“She must have cursed me! I swear she shouted an evil spell before we were turned into this state”

Huh?

“She casted a weird magic on us all. She’s the evil!”

What was she talking about? Did she just accused Kisaragi as the guilty one when all she did was bullying her?

“It’s all because of her, that those thing happened to us”

It's good that she returned to her arrogant self.

But, I don’t get what she was blabbering about. So, I just nodded to her long speech. What I needed was to divert her mind out of the fear she previously shown.

Then she pondered while sweeping the back of her finger to the chin like a detective.

“I think... I strongly feel and sure about, that if I return the pendant to her. We will be send back to our home”

A light sparked into her eyes.

“Yeah! That must be it. I have to find her!”

Hmm... to find her amidst all of this, would be difficult. I previously thought that Kisaragi might be dead already.

I don’t know what she said about Kisaragi was the truth or not. But, if what Sasaki said was the truth, about Kisaragi was still alive and casted an evil spell on us, I don’t think she will let us return to our homeland, especially Sasaki. But I don’t think she need to send all of us to this nightmare, even me, who was helping her before the teleport after all.

She had no reason to drag me into this mess. She isn’t the kind of person that would let people suffer like this. I don’t know why I assumed like that, I just knew it.

Unless, she didn’t have the control of her power.

I’ve always got a strange feeling around her. To be honest, Kisaragi was quite suspicious. She would suddenly appeared nowhere then ran away all she liked.

It was all a fantasy guess, none of the above could be proven true at all. But, seeing a mythical creature appeared before my eyes, didn’t fully brush away all those crazy possibilities.

“Hey! Aren’t we going in?”

Sasaki snapped me out of my long train of thought.

Now that Sasaki is back to her usual self and confidence, we are ready to go.

“Before that, let us make use of the ‘weapon’ you have”