Trinity's Entrance [1]

"Hm..." Everette stared at the mana coalescing around his hand. He then tried to shape it into a sort of blade shape.

The mana wiggled before trying to assume that shape. It stretched an inch away from the tip of his fingers before collapsing. He sighed in disappointment.

'That's the fifth time today.' He didn't understand why. 'Does my wisdom stat have to be higher?'

He made the tip of his fingers touch before pulling them away parallel from each other. Between the fingers were several strings of mana. After reaching a certain length, around 3-4 inches, they snapped before dissipating into the air.

His eyes narrowed. Since he discovered he could control the mystical energy, he has been practising how to control it. He wanted to create constructs out of it, but after many tries and fails, he believed his current Wisdom stat was not high enough for that.

'I feel like we should be rewarded an increase in a certain stat when doing certain tasks.' He frowned. After several days of using mana, he saw no passive increase in his stats.

'Could there be a certain condition for it to increase passively?'

He pushed his back against the chair. He felt that he had exhausted enough mana in practising today. Everette then felt something weighing on his shoulder.

Looking to the side, he saw Ada with her eyes closed. He sighed before staring out the window. 'I wonder when we'll arrive.'

He sensed his eyelids grow heavy. Leaning against the window, he fell into unconsciousness.

***

Tap Tap Tap

Everette stirred awake due to an insistent poke against his cheek. His eyes fluttered open to see Ada's face an inch away from his with a finger pressing against his cheek.

Her mouth widened into a smile. "We're here, bro."

Everette pushed himself off the window before yawning. He stretched his back before preparing to get out of his seat.

"What's the situation outside?"

Ada, who was standing in the aisle of the bus, held her index finger to her chin before tilting her head.

"Not too bad." She answered his question in a casual and relaxed tone.

Everette got up and walked to the front; his eyes widened in shock.

The entrance to Trinity had two tall square towers. Between them was an arched gateway. The towers were topped with battlements, giving them a medieval/gothic appearance.

On either side of the towers was a wall of houses with no gaps in between. In front of these houses were two lawns with abnormally tall grass separated by a concrete path. The grass was around a metre and a half tall and swayed irregularly.

Bam Bam

Everette turned to where the source of the noise was. He saw that the door to the bus was being crowded again by infected humans. He dismissed them and turned to look at the lawn again.

An infected human approached the grass almost like it intended to attack it. It clumsily swung its arm towards a single blade of grass.

Sensing it was being attacked, the grass bent itself out of the way, wrapping itself around the infected's arm. It slithered up all the way to its shoulder before gently pulling it forward.

The infected, which was already barely balancing on its legs, fell towards the lawn. The surrounding grass, which was unable to retaliate against the infected before due to being out of range, was now able to.

They all wrapped around its limbs. The infected looked like he was covered in green bandages that seemed to get tighter and tighter.

With a combined pull from the surrounding grass, all of the infected's limbs detached from its body before being dragged deeper into the lawn.

The eyes of the group darkened a bit. Everette sighed before massaging the gap between his eyebrows.

"So even plants can get infected? It seems we're still at the tip of the iceberg, huh?" Everette scratched the back of his head. He turned back to look at group.

"What do you guys think we should do?"

The group then began to think of a plan. Jack held his earlobe as a sign he was thinking. Amelia was fidgeting with her glasses, which was also a sign that she was thinking.

"We need to get through the entrance sooner or later... And I think it can probably dodge an arrow." Jack gave his input, followed by Amelia's input.

"Do you think you can burn it?" Jack gave a thoughtful expression before shaking his head.

"I might be able to, but I don't want to risk the fire somehow spreading and causing something to happen."

The group nodded in understanding. Ada, who was tilting her head from side to side, suddenly planted a fist into her palm.

"How about Everette and Amelia go deal with the grass?"

The group's attention was on her now.

"Think about it. Since Jack and I don't have anything to cut the grass with, why not let the two people in the group with sharp weapons do it?"

"And what will you and Jack do?"

"Hm? Of course, we'll protect you two against things that might disturb you guys."

Everette nodded. Patrick, the driver, who was still sitting in his seat, spoke up enthusiastically:

"What should I do then, Ada?"

Ada tilted her head in a confused manner.

"What do you mean? You should stay inside the bus where it is safe." His shoulder slumped at that before feeling a hand pat his shoulder, followed by an amused chuckle.

"Don't worry, Patrick. You are doing an important job, too, y'know. If we ever get into a situation where we might not win, we can count on you to get us out of there, right?" Ada sensed that Patrick was feeling down about being unable to do anything, so she gave him a little bit of encouragement.

Patrick nodded joyfully, "O-Of course!"

Ada smiled at that and nodded as well. Behind her, Everette had a weird expression as he stared at Ada.

'Is this a form of manipulation?'