Everyone from the group laid down to have some rest. Growly was the first one to fall asleep. The chubby bear beast-boy didn’t mind sleeping on the hard ground. It was probably thanks to his fur. The ground probably didn’t feel to be that hard for him.
Flavia was ok with laying on the ground too. In order to make it more comfortable, she used half of her blanket as a bedding and used the rest of it to cover herself up. Lilna wasn’t feeling as comfortable as Growly or Flavia were, but she followed the bunny girl’s example and laid down in a similar fashion.
Emilia on the other hand, was feeling uneasy about falling asleep. Although, she tried not to show it. The Ice Princess tried to lean against the wall while covering herself with a blanket that she brought with her. The curious thing was, she tried to cover herself fully, even her face, almost like wanting to hide from someone or something.
Belinda Salroze went to make herself comfortable next to the wall as well, but on the opposite side from where Emilia was. It was evident this wasn’t the first time the athletic female teacher had to sleep inside the dungeon. The group’s guide didn’t have a blanket, but that didn’t seem to bother her. Belinda quickly relaxed and fell asleep. It almost looked like she has forced herself to do so.
Narias was left alone in no time. Or rather, left to keep watch by himself. He went to sit down closer to the room’s entrance, so he could have a better view in case any monsters show up. Obviously, no monsters were in sight. It would still take a while for the monsters they have killed to respawn. But even if they did, the Supply Point room was supposed to be off limits for any monsters to enter.
Not wanting to sit around doing nothing, Narias did the next best thing he would usually do. Narias being Narias, he brought himself a book to read. Since he had some free time, and since everyone was sound asleep, he took out a book and leaned against the wall for a more comfy read.
However, Narias hasn’t even finished reading the first page when he heard strange noises coming not too far from where he was. And the noises were coming from inside the room.
Huh? What’s that? He picked up his eyes from the book he was reading and looked around. Is someone… crying?
Narias tried to listen harder, but the noises, or the crying, stopped. He thought it was in his head, so he was about to resume his reading. But then he heard a quiet sob again. This time, Narias was certain he wasn’t hearing things.
Who’s… Narias looked around to see who it was.
It wasn’t Growly, Flavia, Lilna or Miss Salroze. He could see they were sound asleep, with their faces uncovered and eyes closed. The only other person left was Emilia, who was still hiding behind her blanket.
Emilia? Narias became worried about her.
“Hey,” he came closer and touched on, what he thought, was her shoulder. Narias felt a sudden shiver on the girl’s arm as soon as he did that. “Sorry. It’s me, Narias. Are you ok, Emilia?”
“I…” he heard her quiet voice behind the blanket. Emilia seemed to touch her face with both hands before uncovering herself. “Did I wake you up, Narias? I… I apologize.”
Huh? Her eyes are red. Was she crying? Narias noticed her flustered face.
“Did… did something happen, Emilia?” he asked carefully.
“No, I…” she averted her face away, then lowered her head, feeling somewhat ashamed. “I’m sorry, I…”
“It’s ok. Please, tell me what happened,” he wanted to know.
“Nothing. It’s just…” for some reason, Emilia was hesitant to tell him. “It’s just that I… I am not used to places like this. I feel… a little uneasy about falling asleep here in the dungeon.”
Oh. So, that’s what it is. That’s… understandable, I guess. We are at the Supply Point room, but a dungeon is still a dungeon no matter how you look at it. In addition, this is her first time coming here. Narias realized why she was feeling uneasy.
It was the first time coming to the dungeon for everyone except for Narias and the teacher. Even though, Growly and Flavia were quite relaxed, the same couldn’t have been said about Emilia or Lilna. Even though Emilia was strong and capable spellcaster, that didn’t mean she was fearless. The monsters were real and very dangerous. Even the strongest person would be wary falling asleep inside a monster infested dungeon.
We’ve been fighting monsters all this time. Emilia is probably scared to fall asleep. Still, she needs to get some rest, but telling her we are safe here might not be the right way to calm her down. Narias thought what he could do to make her feel safe.
“Listen Emilia, do you like flowers?” he asked her out of a blue.
“Do I… like flowers?” she clearly didn’t expect the question. “Well, yes I do.”
“What kind of flowers do you like most?” Narias wanted to know.
“Oh, the flowers that I like?” Emilia had to think about it. “I think my most favorite flowers are Dancing Snowdrops…”
“Wow, Dancing Snowdrops? What do you like about it?” he kept asking the questions.
“What do I like about it?” the girl with the snow-white hair looked up, as if remembering the last time she had seen the said flowers. “I love the shape of its blossom when they are in a full bloom. The most amazing thing about the Dancing Snowdrops that there are no two blossoms that are exactly the same, even though, all of them look similar. Just like with us, people. We are all so similar yet different at the same time.”
Wow, that’s such a beautiful analogy. Narias was impressed with Emilia’s comparison.
“Really? I would’ve never thought about it that way. When was the first time you saw a Dancing Snowdrop?” he asked another question.
“I saw it when I was still a little girl. My mom brought me to this wonderful park full of many beautiful flowers…” Emilia started the story about it.
The more Emilia spoke about the flowers the more relaxed she became and the fear of falling asleep in the monster infested dungeon was being pushed away little by little.
Telling her to ‘not to worry about it’ would’ve hardly helped. More often than not, it hardly ever does. When you tell someone not to worry about ‘it’, people usually think even more about the said thing. So, instead of trying to convince Emilia that it was safe to fall asleep, he turned her attention to something that was pleasant to her. It wasn’t that difficult too, because what kind of girl wouldn’t like flowers?
In all honesty, Narias didn’t know what to say to Emilia to calm her down. That’s where his mom’s lessons came to the rescue once again. Having people talk about what they liked would always make them feel better about themselves. And being a bookworm as he was, Narias knew that people couldn’t focus on two things simultaneously. That included thinking as well.
Of course, Narias didn’t do that to somehow manipulate Emilia, or trick her into falling asleep. That would’ve never worked. He was earnest and honest with his questions. Narias was sincerely interested in learning what kind of flowers Emilia liked. And since he was genuinely interested in what she had to say, little by little, Emilia relaxed and forgot all about why she was scared to fall asleep in the first place.
Soon enough, Emilia felt so at ease, she started snoozing. She was tired like everyone else in the group, after all. The Ice Princess felt so comfortable talking to Narias, who was sitting right next to her, that unknowingly she leaned very close to him and even placed her head on his shoulder.
“Wow, I have never heard so many interesting things about the Dancing Snowdrops,” he commented quietly after Emilia told him about it.
“Yeah… I think… it is the most beautiful flower… there is…” Emilia’s words were becoming quieter and quieter. She was already half snoozing, with her eyes closed and head placed on Narias’s shoulder.
“So, maybe…” Narias rubbed his cheek with one finger. “Well… when we come back… maybe I could… huh?”
He wanted to say something, but then noticed that Emilia was already sound asleep.
Oh, she’s already sleeping? Then I… After he noticed Emilia being asleep, Narias wanted to get up and go sit closer to the room’s entrance. Unfortunately, he couldn’t. If he was to move, Emilia would probably wake up. He had no choice, but to stay where he was. I guess… I’ll stay here for a while. Hmm? So, Emilia likes Dancing Snowdrops? Huh? Wow… She is… so beautiful.
Narias turned his head to see if Emilia was sitting comfortably and was instantly stunned by the view. Not to mention, it was the first time he had a girl fall asleep by his side like that.
- ‘Gulp,’ – Narias tried to swallow the remaining saliva in his mouth, not able to take his eyes off of her.
Emilia was leaning at his side, with her head gently placed on his shoulder. Her snow-white hair was falling down, partly covering the girl’s face and carefully ‘hugging’ Narias’ arm too. It almost looked like part of his arm was covered with a white, sparkling snow. Her snow-white eyebrows and eyelashes added that magnificent frost glow to her already beautiful looks. Emilia’s relaxed face and tightly pressed lips, which had that irresistible icy gleam on them, had Narias feel in daze. He couldn’t take his eyes off of her until they started to hurt from him not blinking for so long.
Huh? What? Narias started to blink rapidly to get his eyes wet again. I better… do, I mean, look somewhere else.
He quickly turned his face away. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to choose what to look at. The rest of the group were sleeping too and staring at someone else wasn’t something he wanted to do. The worst part was, Narias has left the book that he had at the spot he was sitting in the beginning. So, now he couldn’t even distract himself with reading.
To make matters worse for him, Emilia suddenly turned and twisted to make herself more comfortable. She slid her arm around his and hugged it tightly. She was still asleep, of course. Emilia was probably feeling much cozier as soon as she did that, because for a brief moment a mild smile showed itself at the corners of her lips.
Narias, not wanting to wake Emilia up, decided to stay put. The seating position he was in wasn’t that bad. He was leaning against a wall, with Emilia helping to keep both of their balance. Narias could’ve fallen asleep in a seating position as he was, but unfortunately, he had to keep watch.
Oh well, let’s just… count something. He finally decided to count numbers.
At first, Narias thought he’ll count to three thousand six hundred, which would’ve been one hour in his previous world. But after thinking about it, he wanted for Miss Salroze to have a longer rest, so he opted to count to seven thousand two hundred instead.
That would’ve been a mundane task for anyone else but not for Narias. He was taking the task very seriously. Right about the two thousand mark something astonishing has happened. He hadn’t thought about it before but now that he was inside the Magic Dungeon, where tracking time was nearly impossible, an incredible idea sparked in his mind.
Hey, now that I think about it, there’s no way to track time in here. We won’t know how long we’ll be staying inside the Magic Dungeon. Or how long we have been here already. An important realization had struck Narias’s mind.
Tracking time is not a big issue while you are outside of the dungeon. They had clocks to do so, although not exactly the type the clocks that they had in Anthony’s world. The clocks here were simply magic devices which showed what time of the day it was. Unfortunately, those same magic devices were too big to carry around comfortably. Many such devices were placed at a lot of visible places for everyone to see.
Inside the Magic Dungeon however, no such things were available. In addition, people weren’t bothered about it too much. People knew that a timer would start right after someone kills a boss monster on the first or the following dungeon floors. Another thing was that a lot of the student groups wouldn’t spend much time inside the Magic Dungeon anyway. Dungeon exploration wasn’t as popular as it used to be, so not many people were honing their time tracking skills.
Ghm… I wonder if Growla Ferpaw would be able to craft me a wrist watch? That was an idea worth exploring for Narias. I’ll go ask him after we’re back.
With that thought in mind, Narias made himself a little more comfortable and continued to count numbers again.
━━━━━━━━━
Thank you for reading. Leave a comment and favorite the chapter if you enjoyed it.
Read 10+ extra chapters on my Patreon – Extra Chapters on Patreon
━━━━━━━━━
Extra thanks to nonomo4 and Lynderyn for their support and help.
Everyone from the group laid down to have some rest. Growly was the first one to fall asleep. The chubby bear beast-boy didn’t mind sleeping on the hard ground. It was probably thanks to his fur. The ground probably didn’t feel to be that hard for him.
Flavia was ok with laying on the ground too. In order to make it more comfortable, she used half of her blanket as a bedding and used the rest of it to cover herself up. Lilna wasn’t feeling as comfortable as Growly or Flavia were, but she followed the bunny girl’s example and laid down in a similar fashion.
Emilia on the other hand, was feeling uneasy about falling asleep. Although, she tried not to show it. The Ice Princess tried to lean against the wall while covering herself with a blanket that she brought with her. The curious thing was, she tried to cover herself fully, even her face, almost like wanting to hide from someone or something.
Belinda Salroze went to make herself comfortable next to the wall as well, but on the opposite side from where Emilia was. It was evident this wasn’t the first time the athletic female teacher had to sleep inside the dungeon. The group’s guide didn’t have a blanket, but that didn’t seem to bother her. Belinda quickly relaxed and fell asleep. It almost looked like she has forced herself to do so.
Narias was left alone in no time. Or rather, left to keep watch by himself. He went to sit down closer to the room’s entrance, so he could have a better view in case any monsters show up. Obviously, no monsters were in sight. It would still take a while for the monsters they have killed to respawn. But even if they did, the Supply Point room was supposed to be off limits for any monsters to enter.
Not wanting to sit around doing nothing, Narias did the next best thing he would usually do. Narias being Narias, he brought himself a book to read. Since he had some free time, and since everyone was sound asleep, he took out a book and leaned against the wall for a more comfy read.
However, Narias hasn’t even finished reading the first page when he heard strange noises coming not too far from where he was. And the noises were coming from inside the room.
Huh? What’s that? He picked up his eyes from the book he was reading and looked around. Is someone… crying?
Narias tried to listen harder, but the noises, or the crying, stopped. He thought it was in his head, so he was about to resume his reading. But then he heard a quiet sob again. This time, Narias was certain he wasn’t hearing things.
Who’s… Narias looked around to see who it was.
It wasn’t Growly, Flavia, Lilna or Miss Salroze. He could see they were sound asleep, with their faces uncovered and eyes closed. The only other person left was Emilia, who was still hiding behind her blanket.
Emilia? Narias became worried about her.
“Hey,” he came closer and touched on, what he thought, was her shoulder. Narias felt a sudden shiver on the girl’s arm as soon as he did that. “Sorry. It’s me, Narias. Are you ok, Emilia?”
“I…” he heard her quiet voice behind the blanket. Emilia seemed to touch her face with both hands before uncovering herself. “Did I wake you up, Narias? I… I apologize.”
Huh? Her eyes are red. Was she crying? Narias noticed her flustered face.
“Did… did something happen, Emilia?” he asked carefully.
“No, I…” she averted her face away, then lowered her head, feeling somewhat ashamed. “I’m sorry, I…”
“It’s ok. Please, tell me what happened,” he wanted to know.
“Nothing. It’s just…” for some reason, Emilia was hesitant to tell him. “It’s just that I… I am not used to places like this. I feel… a little uneasy about falling asleep here in the dungeon.”
Oh. So, that’s what it is. That’s… understandable, I guess. We are at the Supply Point room, but a dungeon is still a dungeon no matter how you look at it. In addition, this is her first time coming here. Narias realized why she was feeling uneasy.
It was the first time coming to the dungeon for everyone except for Narias and the teacher. Even though, Growly and Flavia were quite relaxed, the same couldn’t have been said about Emilia or Lilna. Even though Emilia was strong and capable spellcaster, that didn’t mean she was fearless. The monsters were real and very dangerous. Even the strongest person would be wary falling asleep inside a monster infested dungeon.
We’ve been fighting monsters all this time. Emilia is probably scared to fall asleep. Still, she needs to get some rest, but telling her we are safe here might not be the right way to calm her down. Narias thought what he could do to make her feel safe.
“Listen Emilia, do you like flowers?” he asked her out of a blue.
“Do I… like flowers?” she clearly didn’t expect the question. “Well, yes I do.”
“What kind of flowers do you like most?” Narias wanted to know.
“Oh, the flowers that I like?” Emilia had to think about it. “I think my most favorite flowers are Dancing Snowdrops…”
“Wow, Dancing Snowdrops? What do you like about it?” he kept asking the questions.
“What do I like about it?” the girl with the snow-white hair looked up, as if remembering the last time she had seen the said flowers. “I love the shape of its blossom when they are in a full bloom. The most amazing thing about the Dancing Snowdrops that there are no two blossoms that are exactly the same, even though, all of them look similar. Just like with us, people. We are all so similar yet different at the same time.”
Wow, that’s such a beautiful analogy. Narias was impressed with Emilia’s comparison.
“Really? I would’ve never thought about it that way. When was the first time you saw a Dancing Snowdrop?” he asked another question.
“I saw it when I was still a little girl. My mom brought me to this wonderful park full of many beautiful flowers…” Emilia started the story about it.
The more Emilia spoke about the flowers the more relaxed she became and the fear of falling asleep in the monster infested dungeon was being pushed away little by little.
Telling her to ‘not to worry about it’ would’ve hardly helped. More often than not, it hardly ever does. When you tell someone not to worry about ‘it’, people usually think even more about the said thing. So, instead of trying to convince Emilia that it was safe to fall asleep, he turned her attention to something that was pleasant to her. It wasn’t that difficult too, because what kind of girl wouldn’t like flowers?
In all honesty, Narias didn’t know what to say to Emilia to calm her down. That’s where his mom’s lessons came to the rescue once again. Having people talk about what they liked would always make them feel better about themselves. And being a bookworm as he was, Narias knew that people couldn’t focus on two things simultaneously. That included thinking as well.
Of course, Narias didn’t do that to somehow manipulate Emilia, or trick her into falling asleep. That would’ve never worked. He was earnest and honest with his questions. Narias was sincerely interested in learning what kind of flowers Emilia liked. And since he was genuinely interested in what she had to say, little by little, Emilia relaxed and forgot all about why she was scared to fall asleep in the first place.
Soon enough, Emilia felt so at ease, she started snoozing. She was tired like everyone else in the group, after all. The Ice Princess felt so comfortable talking to Narias, who was sitting right next to her, that unknowingly she leaned very close to him and even placed her head on his shoulder.
“Wow, I have never heard so many interesting things about the Dancing Snowdrops,” he commented quietly after Emilia told him about it.
“Yeah… I think… it is the most beautiful flower… there is…” Emilia’s words were becoming quieter and quieter. She was already half snoozing, with her eyes closed and head placed on Narias’s shoulder.
“So, maybe…” Narias rubbed his cheek with one finger. “Well… when we come back… maybe I could… huh?”
He wanted to say something, but then noticed that Emilia was already sound asleep.
Oh, she’s already sleeping? Then I… After he noticed Emilia being asleep, Narias wanted to get up and go sit closer to the room’s entrance. Unfortunately, he couldn’t. If he was to move, Emilia would probably wake up. He had no choice, but to stay where he was. I guess… I’ll stay here for a while. Hmm? So, Emilia likes Dancing Snowdrops? Huh? Wow… She is… so beautiful.
Narias turned his head to see if Emilia was sitting comfortably and was instantly stunned by the view. Not to mention, it was the first time he had a girl fall asleep by his side like that.
- ‘Gulp,’ – Narias tried to swallow the remaining saliva in his mouth, not able to take his eyes off of her.
Emilia was leaning at his side, with her head gently placed on his shoulder. Her snow-white hair was falling down, partly covering the girl’s face and carefully ‘hugging’ Narias’ arm too. It almost looked like part of his arm was covered with a white, sparkling snow. Her snow-white eyebrows and eyelashes added that magnificent frost glow to her already beautiful looks. Emilia’s relaxed face and tightly pressed lips, which had that irresistible icy gleam on them, had Narias feel in daze. He couldn’t take his eyes off of her until they started to hurt from him not blinking for so long.
Huh? What? Narias started to blink rapidly to get his eyes wet again. I better… do, I mean, look somewhere else.
He quickly turned his face away. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to choose what to look at. The rest of the group were sleeping too and staring at someone else wasn’t something he wanted to do. The worst part was, Narias has left the book that he had at the spot he was sitting in the beginning. So, now he couldn’t even distract himself with reading.
To make matters worse for him, Emilia suddenly turned and twisted to make herself more comfortable. She slid her arm around his and hugged it tightly. She was still asleep, of course. Emilia was probably feeling much cozier as soon as she did that, because for a brief moment a mild smile showed itself at the corners of her lips.
Narias, not wanting to wake Emilia up, decided to stay put. The seating position he was in wasn’t that bad. He was leaning against a wall, with Emilia helping to keep both of their balance. Narias could’ve fallen asleep in a seating position as he was, but unfortunately, he had to keep watch.
Oh well, let’s just… count something. He finally decided to count numbers.
At first, Narias thought he’ll count to three thousand six hundred, which would’ve been one hour in his previous world. But after thinking about it, he wanted for Miss Salroze to have a longer rest, so he opted to count to seven thousand two hundred instead.
That would’ve been a mundane task for anyone else but not for Narias. He was taking the task very seriously. Right about the two thousand mark something astonishing has happened. He hadn’t thought about it before but now that he was inside the Magic Dungeon, where tracking time was nearly impossible, an incredible idea sparked in his mind.
Hey, now that I think about it, there’s no way to track time in here. We won’t know how long we’ll be staying inside the Magic Dungeon. Or how long we have been here already. An important realization had struck Narias’s mind.
Tracking time is not a big issue while you are outside of the dungeon. They had clocks to do so, although not exactly the type the clocks that they had in Anthony’s world. The clocks here were simply magic devices which showed what time of the day it was. Unfortunately, those same magic devices were too big to carry around comfortably. Many such devices were placed at a lot of visible places for everyone to see.
Inside the Magic Dungeon however, no such things were available. In addition, people weren’t bothered about it too much. People knew that a timer would start right after someone kills a boss monster on the first or the following dungeon floors. Another thing was that a lot of the student groups wouldn’t spend much time inside the Magic Dungeon anyway. Dungeon exploration wasn’t as popular as it used to be, so not many people were honing their time tracking skills.
Ghm… I wonder if Growla Ferpaw would be able to craft me a wrist watch? That was an idea worth exploring for Narias. I’ll go ask him after we’re back.
With that thought in mind, Narias made himself a little more comfortable and continued to count numbers again.
━━━━━━━━━
Thank you for reading. Leave a comment and favorite the chapter if you enjoyed it.
Read 10+ extra chapters on my Patreon – Extra Chapters on Patreon
━━━━━━━━━
Extra thanks to nonomo4 and Lynderyn for their support and help.
