We awoke bright and early to start our three-hour journey back to Singapore, having breakfast on the way at one of the rest stops along the highway. The trip was as monotonous as I remembered and I slept most of the way. For the umpteenth time, I wished that teleports could work here too as I nodded off. I did complain to Masa about it, but he merely replied with short messages like "Bear with it" or "I see".

I pouted and put away my phone. The guy had to be busy birding or something again. The fact he replied quickly meant that he wasn't adventuring without me, so that was something, at least. I didn't mind him levelling on his own, since his Level was already higher than mine, but I hoped we could discover new places together. Things were much more fun with another person to share the discovery with. I was also slightly worried that he might meet some other players and decide to team up with them instead. What if there were people from Brazil? The Amazon forest must be a birder's paradise, right? Or New Zealand, the islands with so many endemic birds? I bet that if he ever met a player who was actually from Borneo, he would abandon me without thinking twice.

On the other hand...the scene of him catching the baseball to protect me came to my mind. And the way he grabbed my hand to run when his classmates were approaching us. There was also the way he blushed and looked away when he was embarrassed. Not to mention how he patted my head...whoosh! The heat surged right up to my ears and I lowered the cap I was wearing to hide my red face from my parents.

Ahem. M-maybe he wouldn't abandon me so easily? I imagined that the Amazon forest would at least give him a dilemma though.

While I was lost in my own thoughts, we soon arrived at the causeway. Thankfully there wasn't a jam and we were able to enter Singapore smoothly. Come to think of it, we had only been in Malaysia for less than a month, although it felt much longer. Maybe my sense of timing was off from levelling in Shyi'eld so much. I hadn't thought much about my citizenship and stuff, but since I was holding a Singapore passport, technically I couldn't stay in Malaysia for longer than a month. I hadn't decided where to go for further education yet, so I was kinda stuck in limbo for now.

Ugh...real life problems. I wished I could just go and level in Shyi'eld. I could earn money there, so maybe I could support myself! I could gain plenty of life experiences there too, right? I didn't need to study any more after twelve years of compulsory education, did I? Sigh... My parents might allow me to have a certain amount of freedom, but they would never allow that. Not to mention that I was in for an awful lot of scolding if I told them about Shyi'eld. How come the protagonists in Isekai novels never had such problems?

Ah, right. They either died and transmigrated or were forcibly summoned there. Even those who had access to other worlds while living in this one were either living on their own or had no living relatives. How convenient. I didn't want to die and certainly didn't want my parents to die either. Wait a minute, what if I studied overseas? I would be away from my parents and I could level any time I wanted! Naturally, only one destination came to my mind.

As I continued plotting–er, planning, we soon arrived at our apartment in Ang Mo Kio. It had been a while since I last glimpsed these familiar streets and tall HDB blocks. Ah, the AMK MRT station came into view around ten minutes after leaving the CTE from the BKE. Singaporeans were just so fond of three-letter acronyms. Stuff like OIC, AFK or BRB was just the tip of the iceberg. LOL. I would even bet that Singaporean birders would have acronyms for birds. OMR for Oriental Magpie-Robin, perhaps? I should keep a ear open whenever I saw any birders at the parks. This was just so that I could brag about it to Masa, not because I was becoming a birder myself, all right?

We rested for a while at home while I did some research on the Internet about studying in Japan. Apparently there were quite a few short exchange programs, but I was searching for something longer. I also messaged Masa to ask whether his school accepted foreign students and he promised to get me an answer as soon as he could. Hmm, I wasn't sure if it was just me, but he sounded relatively enthusiastic about it. Surely that couldn't be it. He didn't even want me to meet his classmates, right?

Either way, I wasn't going to get an immediate answer, so I put the thought aside for now and packed my bag for tomorrow. We were going to visit my grandma at the hospital, so I carefully wrapped the potion I bought and placed it in my handbag. On second thought, I doubted she would be willing to drink some unknown liquid in an antique-looking glass vial. The vial didn't look like it had any magical preservative properties or anything, so I decided to pour it into an opaque thermos water bottle instead. Maybe she would believe me if I told her it was herbal tea. It did smell vaguely grassy since it had been brewed from medicinal plants in Shyi'eld. So, yeah, that was more or less the definition of herbal tea, right? I just hoped its effects weren't as vague as the smell.