Arika, Going Uptown

Grandma is a peculiar person, even aside from her modern, gaming hobbies. I have forgotten most of her habits for all my adult years after she passed, but I strangely just now remembered something out of her I have formerly forgotten.

“Ah! There you are, Grandma! What are you doing—”

The small me popped out her head from behind the walls, as she finally found Grandma crouching as she prayed to a small grave she seemingly had made with a shovel for a reason I haven’t known yet. I, as a child, got curious as I approached her, tilting my head in confusion. Grandma, upon praying, smiled gently at the small me before she patted my head kindly.

“This was a wild cat Grandma likes to feed. He was a cute little kitty…. Grandma buried him and prayed that he would go to cat heaven” Grandma’s eyes looked sad as she pointed at the tiny grave. At that time, I was young enough to not understand much of the concept of death, burial, prayers and heaven, but I only knew Grandma was looking sad enough to cry.

So the first thing I did was to hug her and caress her hair, just like how she usually would comfort me.

“There, there. Gramma, it’s okay. The kitty will definitely go to heaven because of Grandma.”

“Or it could be reincarnated somewhere, in another world maybe? Who knows.” Grandma chuckled at me, as she accepted my gentle reaffirmation with her warm hug.

“Then, I wish it’s an alternate universe where he gets praised a lot!” The small me giggled as Grandma hugged me.

“That would be awesome. Would you join the prayers, then, Arika?”

“I wanna!”

Ah, right. I liked cats because of her influence, didn’t I? Yet I pretended it wasn’t her influence on the times I wasn’t on speaking terms with her….

~*~*~*~

I woke up back to the reality I’m in now with a lick on a tear in my eye. Surprised, I jolted awake, to find the Cheshire I knew as Rui licking my face in worry under a few purring.

“Rui?! Wait, where am I?” I looked around me in panic. It doesn’t look like we’re anywhere in Magifa that I knew. There’s trees everywhere, but the vibes were different from the ones I’ve been in, with different kinds of trees decorating the woods. Then I could feel a light chop on my head, like it was someone’s hand.

“You’re finally awake, sleepyhead.” It was Rama. I blinked confusedly at first, unable to process what’s going on. Aside from the dream of a distant memory, I thought of recalling the memory I had before I was in this situation. If I wasn’t wrong, we got ambushed by Dellney and her Comanet cult, and then when it seems like we would make it through, she suddenly threw a stone to me, and—-

“What… happened?”

“Like hell I knew. Maybe Rana would know better, but she’s seemingly not here….”

What happened after that? I don’t remember. I thought hard of it, but nothing caught up. It’s just that suddenly, me and Rama are in the middle of some woods with very tall trees that covered up the skies with its leaves I couldn’t recognize. It doesn’t look like Rama knew where we were either, and Rui went over to the other side of the woods, it seems.

That was when I heard Rana’s shriek.

“Eeek! It can’t be! Rui, let me go! I need to go there!”

It looks like Rui and Rana are here with us. Yet, there seems to be no sight of Elder, no matter what direction I look. It seems like Rama could’ve noticed who I was looking for, as he clicked his tongue.

“Don’t worry much about Elder. He’d be fine. He lived for so long, these kinds of things won’t kill him.” he said after clicking his tongue, as he tried to reassure me.

“I— I’m not…!” I blushed, as I turned away from Rama, who made a disgusted face.

“It’s written all over your face, and it’s gross. Just so you know.”

“Uugh, why do you have such a problem with me crushing on him, anyway? Do you like me or something?“ I puffed my cheeks in annoyance as I joked. Of course Rama just frowned a little more as he protested.

“No way! Don’t get too far ahead of yourself! We literally just knew each other and you’re far from my type of girl, anyway!” Rama blushed as he screamed, pointing at me. Somehow, he’s quite cute when he’s like this— wait, what am I thinking?! He’s not my type either!

That was when we could hear Rui meowing as well as a sound of thud that caused us to turn around to Rui— and Rana that fell to her butt, for exact.

“Rama! Lady Arika! You two are safe!” said Rana, as she stood back up, before her eyes turned sparkling. “Whatever that magic stone did, it teleported us near the big city of ____! It’s amazing!”

“Big… city?” I tilted my head curiously. It doesn’t look like a big city to me, more like another kind of woods similar to the Forbidden Forest I’ve been in, but Rana might be right since she knows much more about this world than I do. Though, Rama didn’t really react like Rana did, curiously.

“Rana, speak in a language that the Blessed One understands.”

“Eeh? I don’t remember the Blessed One’s version of this city… Let’s just get closer to the city’s center and see the signboard! I think I knew where it could be!”

“That surely only sounds like you wanted to go to the city…. Wait, you always do.” Rama rolled his eyes, as he sighed and suddenly pulled my hands. “Oh well, we don’t have any other choice. Let’s go.”

“I– I can walk on my own!” I declared as I slapped Rama’s hands. It’s probably the fault of our conversation just before that I felt like blushing when Rama held my hand. I do have a few moments when I thought he was cool, but compared to Elder, he seems like a kid at times and Elves age differently than humans. I don’t know his age in human standards so I shouldn’t really think of it….

“Suit yourself.” was Rama’s only response as he clicked his tongue. Doesn’t seem like he noticed my own turmoil, thankfully, that I sighed in relief. Rama then went over and tugs the leash to Rui to make him follow everyone’s path properly. I took the chance to ask Rana about something I’ve been curious about.

“Anyway, Rana. You said this place is a city, right? Then why are there only tall trees?”

“Hm? Trees? Ah, right. Lady Arika’s original world never had these?” Rana blinked curiously as she pointed up at the forest tall trees. No matter how far I looked, they only looked like oversized trees.

“Had what?”

“Skyscrapers?”

I had to do a double take to make sure I heard it right. That sounds way too modern for some fantasy trees, but no matter how much I recalled, I heard them quite correctly.

“Those trees are the skyscrapers of this world?!”

“Ssh, don’t be too noisy! We’d gather attention if there’s some people around!” said Rama, half-whispering. “We definitely don't need people from Dellney’s cult to be attacking us again!”

“Sorry…” both me and Rana said in a small voice. I pulled up my robe’s hoodie back so that my human ears got covered.

But even if Rana said this place is a big city and all those trees are skyscrapers, I couldn’t really believe it’s a big city, as I can hardly see anyone around. If it’s really a big city, there should be some people walking around instead of these endless rows of woods.

“Hey, Rana. You know a lot about cities in this world, right? I’m curious about something…”

“Yep! I always wished to live in one, but I can’t stay too far from Rama who prefers to stay in Magifa with the Elder— Oh, right. You’re asking. What about it, Lady Arika?”

“How come there’s no people walking around the city? There’s only trees— I mean, ‘skyscrapers’ everywhere, which does work in our favor, but…”

“Well, people usually walk around this city from underground tunnels. We only got teleported randomly that we’re in the midst of the skyscrapers, but normally people would enter the underground city from the center, where we’re aiming for right now.”

“Interesting…”

Underground cities… I tried to recall, and I remembered that Elven’s Trailblaze Online does have that setting. At least, from what I heard from my Grandma and then searched on later in the internet when I grew up. If it wasn’t wrong, due to the monsters’ and demons' attack, some big cities are forced to move underground. Judging from how this world seems to be a distant sequel from the setting of that game, it made sense if they decided to make it the norm for bigger cities even after the demons stopped attacking.

There’s still so many mysteries between the connection of this world I’m in and what I remembered from ETO that I couldn’t help but let out a small sigh. If only I listened to my Grandmother’s rambling a little more, I may have known more of this world instead of just knowing little from ETO’s inactive and incomplete wiki.

“Oh no, Lady Arika! Were you tired? It’s almost evening, and we had so many things happening already by today….” asked Rana worriedly upon my sighing. In a way, she’s not wrong. Thanks to the Comanet conversation earlier, I wasn’t able to take much rest and chill before we got thrown to this city for some unknown reason. And I haven’t eaten lunch or dinner either.

“Kind of, haha… it’s fine. I’m used to this.” At least back when I was a career woman, whenever I focused on work and even had overtime work, I skipped having rest and just boosted myself with some coffee or energy drinks. I don’t have any of those in hand or its isekai counterpart right now, however, so I end up just dragging my feet and looking physically tired.

“You did use a lot of magic, too. Unlike Elves, humans, even Blessed Ones, have lesser mana pools in exchange for their variety of magic. You should take some rest.” said Rama, a form of kindness reflected in his words that my heart skipped a beat. What he did after he spoke up made my heart beat even faster, though.

“Kya?!”

Because Rama just decided to suddenly hold me up to Rui’s back, surprising me as he carried me that easily as if I weighed nothing. Are Elven men just that strong or is it just Rama? I couldn’t help but wonder, as my heart beat pulled out a strong rhythm once again.

“Just lie down on top of Rui. There’s surprisingly lots of space and it’s comfortable, you know.”

“O… Okay.” I nodded, as I followed through with Rama’s instruction and laid down, still confused with what’s going on my mind. However, even such thoughts were cleaned up by how fluffy Rui’s back is, and how the way the big cat walked swayed me around as if in a lullaby of a sway that I couldn’t help but feel sleepy once more.

Before I fell asleep on Rui’s fluffy back, I could hear a little bit of the twins’ conversation.

“Nice idea, Rama. We could hide Lady Arika’s existence better like this too~”

“Yeah. It would be troublesome if those cults found her, it’s better like this. You better pull your magic flawlessly, we don’t have time to craft another necklace of yours.”

“Fufu. You’re saying that, but you could notice she lacks mana. People don’t usually notice that easily, y’know?”
“W– what are you implying, Rana?!”

“Nothing much~ It’s just, my twin brothers really likes human girls~”

“E— even if I do, someone like her isn’t my type!”

I can’t even think much of what that implies, since soon enough I fell to a dreamless sleep unlike the nap I had when I got teleported here.