Arika, In the Darkness

“....Lady Arika? What do you mean by that?”

Of course, Rana was confused. It was a crazy statement, after all. There’s no way I could confirm it, either, and from the looks of it Rana only knew of it as a rumor and not a fact. But the speculation just feels right, as everything clicked. The thing is, I also know it’s probably better to keep it to myself. There’s no way I could have any proof of its truth, especially to people of this world who should know better of the Goddess they praised.

“It’s… nothing. Sorry.” I threw my gaze away from Rana, as I at last followed her outside the elevator. “Let’s just research a little more. There’s something I need to read about—”

Or we should’ve been, until we heard a loud explosion as the whole ground shook along with the tree– no, skyscraper library building, as many elves in the library were shaken around with the bookshelves. I fell to Rana’s catching arms, thankfully not harmed at all.

“What was that?! Earthquake?!” I voiced my surprise, as I raised my head to see Rana’s face. Rana’s face was one of gloom and panic, as if she had any idea on what’s going on. Thankfully for me, she vocalized it rather quickly.

“It’s Rama.” Rana panics. “Something must’ve happened down there! We should just get back down to him!”

“Y– You’re sure it’s not just an unrelated earthquake?” I said to her in an attempt to calm Rana down. I probably shouldn’t underestimate the unspoken mental connection between twins, but Rana’s panicking and I figured out I shouldn’t make things worse.

“....I— It could also be, but I really have a bad feeling about this…” Rana bit her lips, clearly in distress. I have no other choice than following her, it seems. We could just do the library research much later, and what’s important is that we confirmed Elder’s whereabouts as well as what happened with Dellney.

“Okay. Let’s just go back to Rama now. We already managed to do what we needed to do. I’ll make a shortcut.”

Seeing Rana’s panicking, I decided to weave another magic by materializing my staff. Since this world has some form of teleportation magic, I figured it would be fair to try and teleport us below right by Rama’s place instead of taking the elevator that may become out of commission due to the earthquake.

It should be alright…. right?

~*~*~

“Ack?! What the ____ hell?!”

Instead of the bottom branch of the tree building sprouting underground, or also known as the library’s front gates, we found ourselves in a dark place where neither me or Rana could see anything. Yet, both of us could even hear Rama’s voice, swearing a swear word I couldn’t recognize as he usually does. I guess my attempt at teleportation magic did work…?

“Rama?! Where are you?” I could hear Rana’s voice calling her brother’s name, as I desperately tried to touch around me to have a sense of what's going on until my vision could face the darkness better.

“You two girls are heavy! Ugh!”

Hearing Rama’s voiced troubles immediately made me realize what’s going on, and I let myself vocalize it even in the darkness.

“Ah, I see now! We’re teleported right on top of Rama because he’s what I’ve thought as I used that teleportation magic!”

“If you know that much, then hurry up and ___ off!”

Following Rama’s protest, both me and Rana made our way out of weighting on top of him, all while it was also when our vision gained back its control and got used again to seeing within the dark room. I decided to assist the twins by letting out some light orbs on the way so that we could see better.

“How come you’re tied up like this?” Rana was the first to notice by a touch and look that Rama was all tied up, unable to move his limb nor cast magic. Maybe the ropes were also some sort of magic item, because from what I knew of Rama, he could just burn the ropes down with his magic.

“They got me and Rui. I tried to just explode the whole ground to escape them but the one with teleportation magic and a magic-sealing rope worked faster.” Rama sighed as he attempted to explain the situation. While I could probably comment on Rama’s immediate reaction of violence, I was more shaken with the identity of the attacker— or kidnapper in this case.

“By ‘they’, you meant those Temple creeps?” I asked. “But I thought they backed off—”

“We were too naive! Apparently after attacking our home, Dellney spread the information on Comanet, and some of those Temple weirdos that live here apparently spotted us from Rui’s description!”

“Ugh, I should have known better to hide Rui… Cheshires are rare, let alone ones with motifs like Rui….”

Even though it wasn’t exactly her fault, Rana blamed herself. In fact, I should’ve been the one more cautious, especially when it involved me. I totally forgot due to the fantasy nature of elves’ existence, but this world is already in such an age of information and advanced communication! In fact, that’s why we were in the library in the first place!

“Don’t worry, Rana. It’s not your fault,” I tried to reassure Rana as I patted her back. “But then, where is this exactly?”

“Who knows. They just left me alone and tied in this dark room after capturing me and taking Rui. Though I heard they’re using Rui for a ‘summoning ritual’ or something.”

“They’re sacrificing Rui?!” I gasped. By my magic light orbs, I could see Rama shrugging his shoulders.

“I hate to say that it’s possible since we don’t know what’s going on with those freaks…” He doesn’t completely deny the possibility, which scares me as I gulped in fear. Yet, I remind myself of the potential of my— no, Angelica’s magical power that brought us here. I bit my lips as I declared to the twins with my fist clenched.

“We should go find Rui before it’s too late— uwa!” Without warning, I fell to my knees as I could feel my legs felt weak as my stomach grumbled as if I’m hungry— even though I ate quite a lot before when we could. I felt this once before. Could it be…

“Lady Arika, could it be that you lack mana…?” Rana’s voice echoed throughout the dark storage room that grew a little darker after my lights started to dim down as if lacking its battery. It made me wonder what kind of build my Grandma did with Angelica that she lacks mana just from teleporting us here.

“She definitely is. Can’t blame her. These kinds of storage rooms should’ve been locking most kinds of magic, but she could pass through it because she’s a Blessed One. It should still eat a lot of her mana, though.” Rama sighed. “Rana, help me out here, then we’ll get out of this damned ____ hell of ____ room.”

“May I add she also used teleportation magic without prior knowledge of where she’s going… People don’t normally do that, it’s way too mana-consuming….” Rana sighed as she tried to manually remove Rama’s binding.

I wanted to lend her a helping hand but Rana shook her head as if telling me it’s better if I focus on my remaining power on lending them light— which have quite dimmed through. At this rate, we couldn’t see anything when my mana ran out, giving us a time limit. My limitations as a human frustrates me. What if something happened to Rui as we got busy with this?

“There’s some mana pills in my pocket. It’s strong, so it’s only for emergencies like this.”

As if noticing my worries, Rama said so with a sigh. He does feel considerate at times like this, which slightly tugs on my heartstring. Wait, if I’m supposed to feel any feelings for anyone in this other world, wasn’t it supposed to be hot older men like Elder—

“Ah, that bottle the Elder always told you to bring?”

“Yeah, my magic could be quite strong and eating too much mana, so he told me there’ll be a time where I need it. Never thought it’s today, though.”

“That’s so strong that you’ll feel weird and dizzy… I wonder if humans also have the same side effects— oh, finally the rope’s off—”

As soon as the rope’s off Rama, he grabs his wand and a loud explosion opens the ceiling, clears up our vision and prevents me from being lost in my thoughts and crushes even for just a second. There’s no doubt who’s the perpetrator.

“Rama?! I thought the storehouse prevented magic?!” I screamed in surprise. Rana shrugged her shoulders.

“‘Most’ kind of magic, but Rama’s kind of unusual… I think it’s mostly because of the rope that he couldn’t cast anything.” Rana said, as she scratched her cheeks as if she’s used to this. No wonder Elder had to hire someone suspicious like Dellney to protect his house from being destroyed every time the twins had a fight….

“But that’ll definitely alert the guards, isn’t it?! What are we going to do if they attack us?!”

“You’re noisy, aren’t’cha, Arika.” Rama sighed as he chewed one of those mana pills, before he smirked in a somewhat dangerous way as he passed the bottle of mana pills to me, as if letting me take it. I still feel awkward about it, though… “Most of them are so focused on searching for you that they just throw me here and leave. But… we could just fight back in case that happens.”

…Okay, I understand everything now, Grandma who should be in the skies of this world at this exact moment! I should never make an enemy out of Rama! Thank goodness he was my first ally in this world!