Travel.

"Mao-kun! Here!" Luha waved from the third seat near the front. The interiors were rather spacious justifying the bus' large size. It barely housed the 12 children from our year, our luggage and the pets at the back.

By the time I settled down, the bus had started to move and from what I could tell by the weird refractions in the window, we were now invisible.

"Hey." I slapped her extended palm with mine.

She was the only one I knew on the bus. Yuuno left yesterday with her batch. It would have been difficult to carry both the second and first years on the same bus. Moreover, there were other batches besides ours' too. 9 batches in fact.

Primary education… elementary school and middle school for those with higher status took place somewhere out of the capital.

It was to ensure that the students who would need to be under surveillance all day in their future and constant worry about their safety would at the very least get a taste of what normal life is like.

Hence we were sent off to a secluded village of an unknown location.

The windows around us turned black so not even the students would know where exactly the destination was and what the route to get there would be. Which was a pretty smart preventive measure in case someone got captured in the future.

What I don't believe was smart was separating children from their parents in their developmental ages. Granted there were many children who didn't have parents at all, their presence surely helped in the development in one way or the other.

But I was sure that the ones who made the school thought of a way to combat this. In the first place, I doubt that a lot of the higher society spent a lot of time with their children and not in social gatherings or occupational retreats.

The whole situation was curious, to say the least.

I spread my legs out forward and they could go all the way. It wasn't because I was short but because there was at least half a metre gap between the two seats.

"Did you bring anything to do?" Luha asked me. "We can just play rock, paper, sc-"

I HAD TO STOP HER! I didn't know how kids came across the notion of rock, papers, scissors ever being a game for entertainment but from what I saw around me they were addicted to it. Almost everyone else on the bus was playing it too.

"Hmmm.... Did I bring anything?~" I slowly put my hand inside my bag and pulled out a tablet. "Wanna play madlibs?"

"Yes!" GREAT! Crisis averted.

I turned on the Gugol Assistant and sat back.

I needed some way to pass my time after all.

"Tell me a Noun."

"Cat!" Classic.

"Adjective."

"Fabulous!" Hmm.

"Adjective."

"Red!" Interesting.

"Verb."

"Eat!" I see.

"Noun."

"Balloon!" This is uhh... kinda weird?

"Adverb."

"Uhh... Sickly." Woah, whut?

"Noun."

"Ground!" Hmm.

"Adjective."

"Magnificent." She knows some long words evidently.

.

.

.

"And we're done!" The input list was way longer than I expected. I hit enter on the screen.

"What is it? What is it?" She bounced on the seat.

"Your sentence is...: The fabulous cat ate your sickly Mom. She blew up like a red balloon and splattered all over the checkered floor. Her broken feet were twisted and her back was torn. It was truly a magnificent sight."

Oh... damn.

It was hard to hold back my laughter. But I had to. I couldn't laugh after making a 7-year-old hear a sentence like that.

That was kinda... funny.

"Pfft-HAHAAHAH!" Never mind she laughed before I did. I was safe.

Before I could stop myself, I erupted in laughter as well.

"Let's do this again! Again!"

After that, we ended up playing madlibs for a while.

The ride that I expected to be tiring was fun. The bus rarely ever felt like it was moving and more often than not it felt like we switched mode of transportation altogether.

We did stop and let a grand total of 3 other kids in. Because surprise surprise Japan was bigger than just a city, and there were nobles outside Tokyo as well.

At some point, it felt like we were on a boat, at some other I could swear that we flew. It felt like I was in one of those 5D ride machines. It was just a part of the journey

I couldn't even guess what was going on outside.

It would be an absolute lie if I said that I was not at all curious how we were safely traversing the roads while being invisible... but I would rather not know the route and continue to live this peaceful life.

Imagine breaking the window out of your curiosity and then getting your bones broken because of a terrorist's. Couldn't be me.

"I'll check up on Clintarou." I said to contain the curiosity within myself.

"Ah, I'll come too."

I got up off the seat off to the back of the bus where all our pets were kept. There was a cage between the passenger in the pet area but you were able to check on them at the very least.

I crouched down and saw five cats, two glass encasements housing bugs and a dog. The dog sat upright and the other animals looked up to him in an almost religious way.

Sufficit to say, Clintarou was fine.

We headed back to our seats.

That was an unnecessary check. But we didn't have a lot to do. Maybe I should have brought a pack of 'Dos'.

The ride was rather long. We left early in the morning and it was already past noon. We decided to have lunch. In my case, it was the Donner roll that Dad packed and in her's, it was a sandwich. An extremely loveless sandwich.

"Did your attendant make that?" I asked.

"No, I did it myself." She said while fidgeting.

"Then do you mind if I try some?"

"N-No! Don't. It's bad."

"But you made it so I was curious."

"Really?" She said after processing for a bit.

"Unnhnn."

"Then you can have some." She handed the sandwich to me and I broke off half of it. A kid easy to work around.

"Fnnn!" She looked at the sandwich landing in my lunch box.

"Now I feel bad. You'll get hungry like this. Here, you can have some of mine as well." I cut off and put three-quarters of my roll in her box. I would much rather a growing girl have this Donner than some loveless sandwich.

I took a bite of the sandwich and it was dry and really hard to eat. She probably made it out of necessity and not want. On the other side, she ate my roll with a wide smile on her face.

Luha really fit the role of a little sister like a glove.

I ran my fingers through the hair on the back of her head. Taking out all the tangled bits.

After eating, we slept some more. Time passed by and my eye lens read 4. Something about moving vehicles was extremely sleep-inducing.

"Attention kids, we have now arrived at our destination. Please prepare yourselves for disembarking."

A voice rang across the bus.

"Luha, get up." I shook her awake. Unlike a certain silver-haired vampire, I knew how to wake people up without slapping them.

She rubbed her eyes and looked around.

"Is it morning already?"

"We never slept at night in the first place. Anyway, get your stuff ready we're almost there."

"There?"

Suddenly a click sounded and the windows turned transparent again. The view from outside became clear.

The sun was somberly looking down on the land. Our new town didn't seem to be as cold as the city. There was no sign of snow. The sunlight was extremely warm looking even at sunset.

There were fields as far as the eyes could see. That was not an overstatement. All we could see were fields and old people tilling away at them.

Needless to say, the 7-year-olds around me, who probably never saw a plot of land that was either industrial or personal property were enthralled by the sight. In fact, they seemed even more excited to watch farmers tilling.

Luha, sitting next to me, was as enthralled as everyone else.

The swaying fields, water channels, small houses... Everything looked picturesque.

It almost reminded me of my original era when farming happened on plots like these. But the degree of organisation was completely different. Even stagnant things like farming had changed over the millennia.

I packed up the food, the tablet and other stuff in my bag. The rest of the luggage was in the storage department. Luha quickly put her stuff together as well.

Eventually, the bus came to a halt and the doors slowly opened for us to leave. It was finally time to step onto the next phase of life.

Everyone left by the order of their seats. We weren't the last ones away from the gates but decided to be the last ones to get off nonetheless. We weren't in a hurry.

When everyone left, we exited too. Leaving with the crowd was too much of a chore.

The wind was soft against the skin and the air was fresh.

This was our new hometown.