𝐢𝐝𝐲𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐜 | 𝐫𝐚𝐲 𝐭𝐩𝐧

𝟒𝟎| 𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐚: 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐩𝐨𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐬.

   "𝐖𝐞𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐧," 𝐑𝐚𝐲 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐬 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐠𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐚, "we've secured a safe place for now. Time to figure out what to do next... How to go about the rescue, and the escape. That is, how do we get Phil's group out of that place. And then, how do we cross over to the human world."

   "We gotta think of something," Emma nodded.

   Nat frowned, "I don't have the slightest idea."

   "I was hoping we'd get some guidance from Minerva," Gilda added, "so what'd you find? What sort of data have they got in that archive room?"

   "Well, lots," Y/n replied, "we've barely even scratched the surface of everything there so far, but we found out, for example, the overall classification and general location of the plantations. Which kinds of farms are there and where. And also, what their particular identification marks are."

   "Identif... oh!" Nat put together the pieces."

   "Yes. Yesterday, that guy showed it all of a sudden, right? Grace Field uses digits on the necks. Glory Bell, a character string on the belly. The kind of writing, the order of characters... the location of the mark. The details vary from plantation to plantation."

   "Meaning one can identify them at a glance..."

   Ray nodded, "incidentally, it seems like only the four premium plantations bother with unique identifiers for every specimen. The factory farms simply use brands. Each farm has a certain symbol, and they just engrave it at some fixed location."

   "So..." Gilda started, "if someone knows about these marks, then just by seeing them on human cattle like us, they'll also know from which farm we came."

   "Right," Emma affirmed, "at the very least, the intelligent demons know about them for sure"

   "We've also found stuff about the promise, the human world, and the location of the demon settlements in this world. Though that part is still not very clear," Ray said.

   "There's an encyclopedia of demon world plants with hand drawings. There's also normal things, like novels and children's books, and we found some materials about demons, but..."

   The children looked confused, "but..?"

   Y/n frowned, "it's all very old. The books here all seem to have been published before 2015... just like in the Grace Field library. We can't be sure with the non-book materials, but when it comes to books that deal with demons and the promise, they're all ancient enough to be considered historical."

   "The children looked at the books themselves, coughing at the dust, "wow, it's falling apart! That's actually super cool!" Lani shouted.

   "Just how many years does that have?!" Nat asked.

   "Well, I dunno what's written here, but at any rate we'll only get super outdated info from these books, right?"

   Don raised an eyebrow, "huh? No, wait a sec... it doesn't add up."

   "Bingo," Ray said, "Don is correct. Yesterday, that man knew how many of us had escaped... and also the date we broke out. There has to be a method of getting real time information about the world. Most likely those monitors."

   Anna spoke up quietly, "what about the method of 'crossing' to the other world?"

   Y/n shook her head, "we've found nothing about it so far... I guess we'll have to lactate Minerva first, after all."

   "What," Gilda gasped, "did you find out anything about Minerva?"

   "Yes!" Y/n held a letter out to her, "this."

   "A letter?"

   "Yeah. It was inserted into one of those ancient books."

   "'Congratulations on your success in making it so far. I apologize for not being able to celebrate it with you personally. This shelter was made for you. However, you should aim for more. Should you want to go beyond merely living in peace, then use your pen and head here. William Minerva A 08-63.'"

   "Do you recall the message from the pen? The handwriting is the same," Emma mentioned.

   "Could it be when he says 'beyond living here in peace', does he mean reaching the human world?"

   "Probably."

   "So Minerva is in A 08-63?" Don questioned.

   "I'm not sure of that. After all, this letter must be several years old. But after we finish giving a look through all the archived materials... Y/n, Emma and I will go find A 08-63," Ray stated.

   The children's eyes widened, "um, but what about us?!"

   "We'd like you to stay here and take care of the kids," Emma said.

   Ray added, "and that's not the only thing we need from you guys."

   "But, Ray," Don objected.

   "In the current situation, we don't need everyone on this mission, you get it, right?"

   "The poachers?" Anna muttered.

   "Correct. In this shelter we're sfe. There's no sight that the demons know about it. And that man has been hiding here for thirteen years."

   "However," Emma added, "his friends were all killed. 'They'... 'the poachers'... Perhaps they had some sort of in-fighting, but if not, the ones who did that may be outside."

   Y/n agreed, "that man said that he himself tried searching for Minerva, remember? Therefore this trip will be fairly risky. If we don't want to lose anyone, I think it's better to split up this time."

   "But! Ray, Y/n, Emma, you... if something..." Don yelled.

   Ray stopped him, "of course, even going alone we'll be taking a risk. But I'm not planning on dying." Lani and Thoma gave him a look, "come on, I'm serious! Besides, it's not like the three of us want to risk it alone. Afterall, we're just 'naive chumps who know nothing'. We gotta get help from a tutor with experience."

   "Wha? No way... You can't be-," just then, the man with messy black and white hair pushed through the doors, scaring the little ones into hiding behind Y/n's legs.

   "Yo," he said in a gruff voice.

   Y/n smiled, "oh, I was waiting for you! Good morning, Mister! Let's make a deal."

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𝐡𝐞 𝐯𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐡𝐞𝐫

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