45 Volunteering 2

"Where do you want to go next?" Shelly asked.

What did we need at a beach?

"There!" I shouted while pointing at a cute shop selling cute swimsuits.

Shelly heavily blushed as Luke intervened, "We have swimsuits inside the villa."

Luke did have swimsuits inside the villa, however, it did not give 'going to the beach' feeling at all! It was just ordinary clothes spelled to be waterproof with mana.

I quickly dragged Shelly to the store and tried on a lacy pastel yellow two piece and handed Shelly the same design but in stary blue.

We got out of the changing room to find Luke and Alex murmuring to each other with words like 'improper' and 'irresponsible'.

Not wanting to hear the constant criticisms of Alex and Luke, I dragged Shelly to the beach with a big beach ball that the store gave us as a bonus.

"Come on!" I shouted to Shelly with eagerness to start playing.

I taught Shelly how to play with the ball inside the soft waves that reached the height of our knees.

Luke and Alex just sat down in the beach chairs while eating some of the food that they didn't let us eat before because it 'wasn't safe'.

Suddenly, a big gust of wind blew the ball far away to the deeper part of the ocean. "I'll go get it!" I yelled to Shelly.

"Wait." Shelly grabbed onto my wrist.

"I'll come with you."

We swam to the ball to find a island not so far away from where we were. "Do you want to go try exploring?" I asked with anticipation.

"Are you sure?" Shelly had a bit of worry in her voice.

"Why not?"

We swam to the island to find it bigger than we thought it was. It was filled with trees full of tropical fruits near the edge of the island.

"Let's go deeper inside," I continued.

After thirty minutes of seeing only luscious trees, we found a building that resembled a resort from my past life.

The resort looked like it was empty with not a single person inside. However, there were flat screen TVs, gaming computers, and video games deeper inside the resort as part of the entertainment section.

My eyes must have started to glitter from exhilaration as Shelly stared at me like she was greatly confused.

"Who's there?" I saw a wisp of the familiar honey-brown hair coming down the stairs leading to the first floor.

"Whoever you are, you are trespassing onto the family of Nuelle's property so I advise you to-" The person warned.

"Ben!" I shouted while unintentionally interrupting him.

"Rika?" Ben's eyes widened.

"This is your place?" I tried to contain my excitement.

"Yea, I didn't expect to-"

"Can we please stay here for the rest of the week?" I started to beg.

"I thought middle schoolers were doing volunteer work during this time?" Ben asked with a hint of amusement.

"Can't we just say I was volunteering at your resort to make the first district a 'better place'?"

"We all know this volunteer work thing is a scam anyways!" I finished off.

Before Ben could respond, I quickly did a dogeza, "I promise I won't make your resort messy."

Ben unconsciously nodded like he couldn't believe how I was behaving, "Thanks for nodding, I'll leave after a week" I quickly said before Ben could respond.

I rapidly left Ben that stood there frozen to turn on the precious flat screen TV that I rarely got a chance to see ever since my reincarnation. "It's so beautiful," I whispered while tears came out of my eyes.

"Umm Rika. Don't you think we should change out of our swimsuits now or his floor may get wet." Shelly reminded me while confused why I was crying.

"Oh and we'll also borrow your washroom too," I added to Ben who was still frozen from shock.

Ben's resort was really nice. I thought it would be the regular jacuzzi like Luke's house, but he had a whole floor dedicated to hot springs produced from mixtures of mana crystals rocks in each section.

After changing back to my regular clothes while completely in bliss from using the hot springs, I went to the dining hall with Shelly as we were getting hungry.

Ben was already seated in one of the chairs with the table being filled with tropical fruits glistening from the light, croissants, cakes, and piles of grilled meat toppling over each other.

"Wow! We were getting hungry anyways!" I put some of the food on top of my plate while I thanked Ben.

"I don't mind you staying for a couple of days with your friend Rika. But do your partners know that you're here?" Ben asked.

Oopps. Alex and Luke didn't know. "I think if we change the form submission of where we're doing the volunteer hour thing, they'll figure out anyways?"

I knew Luke would take me back to his villa as soon he knew I was here. "Do I have to tell him? If I do, I'll have to leave soon without enjoying all these goodies in front of me," I started to cry and whine.

Both Shelly and Ben were stupefied by my sudden pleading and crying as I tried to look absolutely miserable.

"I'll tell Alex that due to unchangeable circumstances that we had to change where we're doing our volunteer hours without telling him our location," Shelly tried to console me.

"Really!" I perked up while still crying.

"Yea... But we might get into a fight though," Shelly sadly smiled.

When Shelly finished eating, she contacted Alex with her marble.

Unfortunately, I saw Luke's angry face when he stood right beside Alex in the video chat while I stood in a place that was out of the range of the camera.