The Hunt (10)

I was stunned when I crashed into an underground cave, not expecting to dig this far. Finding the hole to be spared, I sighed in relief, realizing the game had already ended for today. I immediately summoned Micah, wanting more advice. Micah came within a second, answering my prayers. In my pitiful state, I turned to him, "where is this place?"

"You're inside another space, almost acting like another dimension. You should be careful, the time difference between the surface and here can drastically affect your life," he warned me.

"I hid inside a hole to escape from the hunter. I dug deeper until I ended up here, the hunter discovering my location towards the end of the game," I explained.

"This was extremely risky. If the hunter discovered you earlier, you could have died from the entire ground pressuring you with its weight," Micah thought I was reckless.

"Is there anything precious here? Something I could take with me?" I wondered.

"You could own this entire space. I can help you enter it into your inventory. This is the rule that comes with this land for undiscovered areas," he suggested.

"Will I be able to come back here again?" I thought it would be a waste not to explore this place.

"It will be easily accessible. Just tap on the item inside your inventory and you will find yourself here again. This is specially developed by fairies, not known by humans yet," Micah mumbled to place it inside my bracelet.

My wrist began to glow, heavily filled with mana. Warmth came in and out of me until Micah finished with the spell, helping me relax. At least I was able to achieve a space for myself, somewhere I could be temporarily freed from my chains for a while. I slightly smiled, lifting my head, "should I teleport back to the surface?"

"No time should have passed since you entered the cave. I manipulated it once you summoned me," Micah disappeared into the other dimension.

I mumbled to teleport to the area above my hole, surprised when my surroundings were completely ruined. The mansion was lit on fire, much worse than Oili's mansion. Its walls continued to crumble down, the roof slowly crashing with it. Wasn't it supposed to be a simple earthquake? I coughed from the smoke drifting into my nose, my eyes becoming watery. My mind was still confused, finding myself in a wasteland from what used to be a beautiful garden.

"Rika?" Alex instantly found me.

"We're going home now," he focused on dragging me into our hover car.

"You found her?" Ethan ran to join us.

"Can I purchase your garden?" I tried to talk to him.

"You can visit our mansion to continue your conversation," Alex decided we had to escape first.

From my begging eyes, Ethan reluctantly joined us, entering the same hover car. Looking down at the utterly destroyed mansion grounds, I discovered we were the last ones to escape. Everyone else had already escaped like I predicted, Ethan only staying behind as the owner of the mansion as part of his duty. In case, there could be ownership issues, I needed to purchase his garden for that cave. There had to be something valuable inside there, a great source of income once I managed to open my own bank account, separate from the Roselia family.

"Can I purchase your garden?" I repeated.

"You can take the entire place. It's almost worthless now after the guests directly experienced the danger," Ethan transferred the ownership to me without any questions.

"We can't accept this. Please let us pay you the market value," Alex immediately wrote a number on the cheque.

"Wait, I'm paying for the ownership," I handed Ethan an elixir.

"This costs around a trillion Aris in this dimension," I explained.

"What?" Ethan pushed the elixir to me back.

"Accept it. Do it for me, your childhood friend," I pleaded to him to take it.

"I'll give you the remaining money after finding out the true value," Ethan placed it inside his inventory, noticing my eyes welled with pitiful tears.

Once the ownership issues were fully resolved, I happily revealed, "I found an underground cave after digging into the ground."

"It almost acts like another dimension, the time difference being present. Plus, it fully belongs to me and not the Roselia family," I almost hummed.

"What is your name?" Alex started to resemble Luke.

"Rika," I didn't include my other names.

"You are Rika de Impalia Roselia. You belong to the Roselia family whether you want it or not. Who do you think raised you?" He tried to point out.

"I belong to myself and why would I reveal the location of the cave to you? It's a good hideout," I had the upper hand.

"If I reveal everything to Luke, you won't be ever allowed to leave the school or mansion again. I can convince our grandparents to move your days of freedom further away," Alex warned me.

"It was a lie, you don't have any evidence that I have it," I regretted telling him about it.

"If you reveal everything to Luke, I'm jumping out of this hover car," I had a counter measure.

"Try it, I locked all the doors. They won't open for you," Alex was unfazed.

"Swear on your family name you won't tell Luke anything about what happened today, and I'll give you the cave," I spat the words out for my legendary item.