Page 42

Syrus began to feel the mana drain of her fire magic increase. This wasn’t the first time it happened, which was why she didn’t panic, but it was still concerning. It had drained at faster rates before but not knowing what caused it was an issue.

Another wolf jumped towards Anna, but Syrus dipped to the side and crouched down before launching a strengthened kick into the beast's stomach.

Syrus handled the physical combat while Luna knocked back the beast when she felt they were getting too close. They weren’t great at working together, but they both wanted to contribute to defending themselves and the situation wasn’t dangerous enough where their non-perfect teamwork would get them hurt.

Eva on the other hand didn’t know what she could help with, so she did the only thing she knew, stay back and not get involved in any of the fighting. The situation was scary for her and every time they got into any danger she partially mentally froze.

The rest of the fight was no trouble as Syrus carefully executed the remaining wolves with the help of Luna. Eva made sure to look away when the kills happened by disconnecting from the body in short bursts. She wasn’t scared of the blood, but the situation was too intense for her so these quick dips helped her calm down.

Once the area was cleared again, it was time to finish what they came here to do.

“Okay little plant, time to glow red.” Syrus crouched down next to the flower and placed her fingers around the head. She began to pour Fire attribute mana into the flower while Eva and Luna watched.

As the flower began to shine red, Syrus pulled and cut the flower out of the ground.

But then the red light cracked and flashed a grey and white before the light vanished leaving the flower permanently changed.

[Sorry!] Eva wanted to cry, [I think some of my attribute mana went in!]

[No, no, no, it's alright…] Luna, [It’s pretty this way, and I believe some of my own went into it as well.]

The reason they wanted to make the flower red was because that was ‘Anna’s attribute’ and it would’ve been a pretty colour. But what they got instead, while technically potentially alerting to what their attributes were, felt correct to Luna.

The flower had six petals with no gaps between them, the flower's colour was a deep red with a cracked pattern over it and it shone a white reflective shine.

[Your Manipulation may’ve added the cracks, but my Moonlight added the shine.] (Luna)

[Yeah, as Luna said before. It’s better this way.] (Syrus)

Luna carefully placed the flower in a cloth and began to wrap it up.

Before the flower was covered by the cloth, Eva looked at it one final time and mumbled, [Yeah… you're right…]

The flower now safely acquired Luna asked, [Do we just want to say the flower was damaged before we found it? That’s if they start asking questions.]

[That works for me.] (Syrus)

[Hmhrm.] Eva hummed in confirmation.

With that done, the only thing left to do was go home. Sadly due to how far out they went, it was going to be a multi-hour walk back.

[Let’s find our way home…] Eva was tired and wanted this to be over. This was already too much excitement for one day.

[Don’t worry, I remembered the way. It won’t be too long.] (Syrus)

[Wait, I have a suggestion why don’t we take a slight detour to reach the river? The ground is flat near it so you should be able to sprint more easily.] (Luna)

[Nah, don’t worry, I can still reach high speed through the forest.] (Syrus)

[If you say so, I’ll take your word for it.] (Luna)

Syrus nodded, first placing the flower in her front shirt pocket, she then began to run.

Using her Blood attribute to keep her body energised, Syrus ran through the forest. Jumping over logs and ducking under branches.

After an hour of running Luna was getting worried, this feeling was amplified when Syrus who was in control looked up and saw the sun's position.

[Crap it’s getting bright!] (Luna)

[That’s bad… What time is it?] (Eva)

[From the position of the sun, it's five or something near that. Honestly, it could be between four and six, I’m not exactly sure.] Syrus apologised, [Sorry, I should’ve kept track.]

[No you shouldn’t have, you were busy, it would’ve been better if I learned how to keep track of time.] (Eva)

[Nah, it's alright.] (Syrus)

Soon Anna finally reached their village. Emerging from the forest she quickly made her way to their house.

Making their way to the front door, once they reached it they were careful to open the door quietly.

“Nice to meet you, young lady.”

However, their plan to stealthily sneak back home ended with immediate failure when they found themselves face to face with their mum.

Jen asked sternly, “Anna, where were you?”

“I was out for a morning walk, I walked along the village border, then sat in the grass for a while.” Luna calmly explained what they had done, “Once I felt refreshed I came home.”

Syrus chimed in, “Laying down would be more precise.” In an effort to add more to their alibi.

“How early in the morning?” Jen asked.

Luna replied, “I’m not sure, the sun was barely though.”

“Why didn’t you ask to go outside?”

“You were asleep, none of us wanted to wake either of you up.”

A small back and forth continued for three minutes with Anna not allowed to leave the doorway.

Then a tired saviour finally left his room, “Jen you finally done drilling into Anna yet?”

Jen and George had a talk when they awoke and found out Anna was gone, so George knew Jen was going to admonish Anlesa in some way.

“No..! Well…” Jen looked down at Anna who was dirty from lying down in the grass–running through the forest–and thought maybe she should finish this talk. “Fine, yes I’m mostly done.”

George then asked, “Good, do you want anything special for breakfast then?”

“No, just the usual please.”

“All good.” George turned around to get some bowls out of the cupboard.

“Well… I’ve said some of what I wanted to say, but… that will be it for now.”

Anna nodded, “Yay, can we go inside now?”

“Oh… yeah… sorry about making you stand there… I was kind of in a moment.”

“That’s all good.” Anna smiled and walked inside.

Jen had stepped out of the way, but as Anna walked past her, she grabbed her shoulder, “Wait, first, we are taking you to the bath. It's morning and you are already filthy.”

Luna asked confused, “We?”

“Yes, I’m going with you, I'm making sure you will be spotless.”

Luna asked, “Can I go alone?”

“No not this, think of this as part of your punishment,” Jen replied.

“....” A quick moment of worry was felt between the three of them. Because they worried either that Jen would find the flower or it would be damaged in the wash if they were unable to get it out secretly.

However, this brief moment of worry was noticed by the family detective.

“Are you hiding something, sweetie?” Jen’s eyes glinted with curiosity as she noticed the pause within Anna. Mostly thanks to Eva’s sudden twitch that Luna wasn’t able to suppress.

[What do we do!] (Eva)

[We could try hiding it in our shoes?] (Syrus)

[Guys it's just our parents…] Luna sighed, [It’s only our parents, let's just give it to them now.]

[But…] (Eva)

[It’s only a week away, I’m sure they aren’t going to care about receiving a present a week early.] (Luna)

Jen just continued to smile, “Do I need to take you to the bath to find out?” She assumed that Anna had hurt herself and didn’t want to make a fuss about it.

“Before that,” Luna announced, Eva continued, “We… have a present for you two.”

George looked over his shoulder, “Both of us?”

Sryus called out, “Yeah, so stop being distracted.”

They moved further inside, and Jen and George stood next to each other as Anna pulled out a small cloth from her front pocket which she placed in her hands.

Anna lifted the cloth off the flower and said, “Happy anniversary, Mum, Dad.”

The crimson-red flower with a crack pattern shone as it entered the eyes of Jen and George.

“Wow…” George not knowing what the flower was just marvelled at its colours.

Jen asked shocked, “It’s… that an Elerliss flower?”

Anna placed the flower in Jen’s hands, “It was damaged when we found it… but we were still able to dye it red.”

George's eyes widened, “How…”

“We read about them in our plant life book… and found out they grew occasionally in the area.”

“Wait you didn’t go far out did you?!” Jen frantically asked, concerned.

“No,” Luna calmly replied, “The thought was brought up, but we decided being safe and sound for the anniversary would be better.”

“We explored around the outskirts a few times looking for one… but only today did we have any luck…”

Eva apologised, “Sorry we could only get a damaged one.” She was still feeling down about what she did to the flower.

“Nothing to be sorry about,” George patted her on the head, “It's better this way.” The cracks in the flower appealed to George’s sense of aesthetics.

George kneeled down to be at Anna’s eye level and Jen followed suit moments later.

George hugged Anlesa tightly, “This is the best anniversary present we have ever received.”

Syrus made a joke “Is it the only one?”

Jen commented, “Well if it was, that would still make it the best.”

Luna said, “But technically also the worst.”

George sighed with a laugh, “Sometimes I think your mother is a bad influence.” His family and their sense of humour never changed.

Jen asked, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just that one needs to take the good with the bad.”

“You little…”

Despite not being the situation Anna expected to give their gift in. Their parents were still completely delighted by it.

After their family’s playful bickering. The family embraced once more in a family hug with happy tears shed by two joyful parents.

““Thank you for being born Anna.””

Truthfully they had already received the gift they wanted, but that gift just kept on wanting to give more every single day.