Chapter 4 (1/1)

With the new information, Tao and I had actually started to bond. He was interested in how time developed as he was sleeping, and I was perfectly alright with telling him everything I knew around me.We slept in the cave when the dimmed light disappeared altogether, and when I woke up the next morning, I realized two things; Tao actually wasn’t as scary as he first seemed, and that I was hungry.Tao was still asleep when I woke up, so I had to find breakfast before he did wake up. (Why he wanted to sleep after three hundred years of sleep, I didn’t know) I opened up the survival pack I had and blinked at all the things in it; clothes, matches, first aid kits, bags and bags of emergency food and medication, empty pieces of paper (I assumed they were there in case I wanted to write up a few maps in the future), and as of currently, the box that had once held Tao’s ring. The bag was actually bottomless, thanks to an enchantment performed by some warlock I never knew.I grinned at the food in the bag and pulled out a couple of bags, looking them over carefully. The food had already been cooked and ready to be eaten thanks to another witch, and I left one of the bags of food with Tao before carefully making my way outside of the cave with a spare change of clothes found in the bag.I wasn’t sure if I’d be seen there, and I didn’t exactly think anyone would want to see me bathe, so I did my business in the pond- which now looked more like a river as its stream coursed the valley smoothly.When I walked back into the cave, Tao was already awake and done eating, though he looked up at me with a slight frown on his lips, “You wouldn’t happen to have any more food, would you?”I couldn’t help but laugh at his words. He may have been hundreds of years old, but he was still a man, and men loved eating. Thankfully for me, the enchantment allowed for the backpack to never actually run out of food, or else I'd really worry about how we were supposed to survive.I sat down a few feet away from him and allowed myself to eat as well, though I continued to watch him curiously. He was obviously uncomfortable with my gaze and looked up at me with his cheeks slightly puffed out, and then blinked rapidly to make sure I was actually looking at him and he wasn’t imagining it. “Is there something on my face?” He spoke with his mouth full, and only then did I realize just how unattractive it was to see someone speaking with food in their mouth. I felt a little guilty for doing that to Cook Park, but I pushed that aside temporarily.“Sorry, I was just wondering how you could have fit in the box.” I replied, looking down at my almost empty bag of food, consisting of rice and some sort of baked or curried chicken.“We were cursed and put into our rings.” Tao answered anyway, and my head snapped towards him in worry.“Don’t you want to be freed from the ring for good?” I asked, putting down my bag of food and frowning to myself as I thought of possible ways in which I could help him.“Free?” Tao hummed and looked up at the cave ceiling before letting out a loose shrug, “Yeah, I’d like to be free, but it takes a boat load of magic for that and I don’t have that power on my own.”I hummed as well and looked away in thought, thinking of ways I could help the guy. I didn’t know him well, and I didn’t have to free him, but a part of me said it was right of me to want to free him.“Would one of the warlocks in town be able to help?” I turned to look at him again and felt my eyes widen when I caught him looking at me with an eyebrow raised in curiosity.“You’d need the strength of several mages to set us free.” He said blankly, then gazing down at his fingers in dejection, “You could use us to set us free, but I don’t know where any of them are.”I didn’t like seeing him like that, so I slowly inched closer and placed my hand in his hair. He jumped at the contact, and then stared at me in slight horror, but he started to calm down when I started running my fingers through his hair.“I don’t know anything about you or the rest of the mages, but I’ll do my best to help you.” I spoke gently, and unsurely. I honestly didn’t know why I wanted to help them, because I spent most of my time depending on myself and being ignored.Perhaps that was why I wanted to help Tao so badly; because I’d spent too much of my life being unimportant, that as soon as an opportunity for me to help someone became available, I jumped at it.“Why? What do you want in return?” His eyes narrowed at me, as if he both wanted to trust me and didn’t at the same time.“Will you… be my friend until then?” I bowed my head and pulled my hand away from his hair, sure not to look at him in the face in case he would make fun of me or tease me.“Your only request is for me to be your friend? Then you’ll help us find freedom?” Tao hummed once more and then stood up, holing a hand out to me.I didn’t hesitate to take his hand, letting him pull me onto my feet, my half-empty bag of food flipped onto the floor as I stared at the male.“You have yourself a deal!” Tao’s eyes suddenly brightened and he turned to the cave entrance excitedly, “Let’s go on an adventure together! I’m sure we’ll find the others as we go along.”I was taken aback by his sudden brightness, and I couldn’t hide back my own smile as I thought of how excited he was about the promise of being set free. I didn’t know how many friends he had that would be living with the same fate, and I didn’t know if I had what it took to free them, but I was certainly going to help them no matter what happened to me.Pulling my hand away from his, I put my backpack back on and stretched out my arms before creeping to the entrance, “Tao, you weren’t awake for the past few decades, so I don’t think you know, but there are creatures everywhere around us that can kill us-”“Don’t worry! I know martial arts, and with my magic, they won’t be able to come anywhere near us!” Tao shot my warning down easily and practically skipped out of the cave with me following carefully, my hands covering the pistols attached to my sides.I could hear the hissing as soon as the two of us left the cave. They probably became curious when seeing the sudden river form in a part of the forest that shouldn’t have had any running water.Before I could even draw my gun, Tao held up a hand and swiped it over the air, and suddenly, time stilled. I stood in shock at the now sudden scene ahead of me, and Tao turned back to me with a wide grin.“It won’t be still for too long, so let’s get going!” Tao didn’t wait for me to agree or disagree and started walking, sure that I wouldn’t refuse now that there wouldn’t be much danger.As we started getting closer to the town barrier, I reached out and tugged on Tao’s shirt sleeve. Tao hadn’t expected that and jumped slightly before turning back to me.“What if one of the others are in the town barrier as well?” I looked around us again and squinted my eyes, hoping I could see something or another.Tao blinked as if he hadn’t thought about that before, and ran a hand through his hair, “You’re right, I haven’t thought of that before.” He reached out and took my hand in his again, flashing me a grin, “I’m going to let time run its course. We’ll have to run, unless you want to be caught by those things.”I nodded, and Tao swiped the air with his free hand before breaking into a run. I was fast, but because Tao had longer legs than I did, I had a slight bit of trouble keeping up with the mage.The hissing started up again, and when I threw a glance behind me, I gasped when noticing that they were actually just a few meters behind us.“Crap.” Tao hissed to himself, looking back at them as well, “My powers aren’t complete until I’ve been reunited with the others, so I can’t do much.”“Leave it to me.” I assured him, reaching for one of my pistols and allowing Tao to drag me along as I shot blindly at the things behind me.“What are you aiming at?!” Tao demanded, and though his voice held amusement, I knew he was inwardly panicking that we had yet to outrun those things.I wanted to slap him for pressuring me, since it was hard to aim as we were running in jagged lines to get those things that were gaining in numbers away from us. Only then had I noticed that we were running straight towards the town’s walls, and I turned back to look at Tao.It was as if Tao felt my gaze, for he started speaking to me again as we continued running, “I figure they’re more concerned about the town so they’ll stop following us when we get further.”Shaking my head, I couldn’t help but tug on his hand, “Yeah, they’ll stop because there are plenty more of those things outside of the barrier.”His logic didn’t make sense and would most likely get me killed, so I persistently tried to make him turn around or at least go another way, but he kept running, and soon, we were past the barriers and into what seemed to be a wide desert that stretched out for miles.The worst part about it was that there was no place for the two of us to find cover.The best part was that surprisingly, the desert didn’t seem to have any of those things around. Apparently, Tao’s words were right and I noticed that those things had gone back the second they noticed we were leaving the barriers.I stopped running as soon as I figured we were safe from any harm and replaced my pistols in their holsters, taking deep breaths as I waited for Tao to do the same.“Why… did… they-… stop?” I panted, leaning forward with my hands on my knees as I stared up at Tao.Unlike me, Tao looked unaffected by all the running we’d just done, and looked as if he could run for another few hours without being affected.“I’m not sure.” Tao said as he let his gaze wander around our surroundings. Other than a few cacti and gusts of wind, there was nothing that this desert had to offer anyone, and I was getting a little worried that perhaps, we’d be stuck in this place for a long time, “Come on, let’s keep going!”Disgruntled and tired, I followed Tao, who had still been holding my hand as if I’d get lost should he let go of me. I was far too exhausted to get angry at it, though, and kept trailing after him, though my body was sore and we’d kept walking without getting anywhere special.The male next to me was far more excited about the adventure than I was, it seemed, as he kept going even though neither of us knew what to expect, and his slight skip was still present as we walked forward. He was like a giant child, and I didn’t know how to react about it.Finally, as the sun was starting to go down and the winds started getting chillier, Tao and I started seeing what was like an oasis nearby. I knew Tao was disappointed because it wasn’t a resting place of one of his brothers, but I was more than relieved that we’d found a place of resting for the night. It was starting to get freezing cold in the desert, and I needed to find a way for us to set up a fire and rest in warmth until morning came.Despite his whining and stubborn callings of “I’m not tired” and “I want to keep going,” Tao eventually gave in to my demands and the two of us pitched up a tent I had found in my bag of never ending supplies. There was no way for me to light a fire without timber, however, so the two of us simply huddled together to stay warm that night."Yun Seung? Thanks again, for agreeing to help me find my brothers.”Tao’s voice was soft, and I suppose it was because he noticed I was slipping into dream land. I wanted to stop him from thanking me, since I wasn’t sure of what I could do for him or his brothers, but I had suddenly felt too tired to speak and allowed myself to drift off into my dreams.Only to find myself in a field of wind turbines.