Chapter 533: Attempts

A small frown began to crease his brows as Captain Don wrecked his head, trying to think of a way to talk to the beast. Apart from animalistic, predatory howls, roars, and unintelligent snickers the beast hasn't spoken anything, despite making it clearly obvious it was highly intelligent with a full set of emotions. 

He was capable of hate, disdain, arrogance. Most likely it could be angered, it could feel rage, but at the same time, it had to be able to feel the opposite ends of the spectrum as well. It should be able to smile, feel happiness, and love. If it could taunt with just a look, it should also be able to smile or look longingly at its mate.

Still, there were no attempts at communication from the creature at all. At first, they thought that it was incapable, but later they dismissed that thought. If that were the case, and it would communicate through a different method, either using some sort of gesture-based system or through a more abstract, psychic method it would have no use of facial expressions.

This made Captain Don and the rest of the team come to the conclusion that the beast, for whatever reason, simply refused to speak.

Yet without hearing its language, it would be extremely hard to attempt to decipher and attempt anything proactively from their side.

With no other choice, they could only try to speak to the creature and hope it could understand them.

The thought made Captain Don heave yet another sigh, as he turned to look at the 4 pairs of dark dots sprawled out at the upper part of the creature's face and speak in a cold, somber tone.

"Hey." Captain Don decided on the simplest approach; he throw a curt greeting towards the creature raising his arm in the air to convey the motion just a bit more hoping the creature would understand it.

Looking at the creature's face, he waited for a bit, waiting for some sort of reaction from it before continuing.

Seeing as the creature did not react in any way and just kept its creepy gaze over him, Don sighed.

"This is going to be much harder than I thought…" He muttered under his breath. Looking back at the creature, he pondered for a bit before beginning to slowly speak whilst making sure he articulated and gestured every word, every sentence. 

At first, he slowly introduced themselves, explaining that they were from another plane, another world, and have come to this realm with no hostile intentions. Though he made sure to not speak about the truth of the matter, Don instead explained that they were in search of their missing friend who have somehow landed alone to the far north, northeast.

When the old man, pointed towards the direction where Aiden, the Young Master should probably be, the beast finally had a change of expression. The so-far insipid, stoic, emotionless look changed, transformed into a slight, displeased-looking frown. Its gaze shifted towards the pointed direction for a bit, before as if nothing happened, it returned over to the captain with the previous stone-faced look from before.

Still, the small movement it made was still caught by the captain. He wasn't sure if he did fully understand what he was trying to say, or more than the direction he pointed at was familiar to it. Still, at least there was some reaction finally, which he could start working with.

Don pointed back towards the far distance again. Focusing his gaze on the creature, he slowly spoke.

"Do you know, what is in that direction, hmm?" He asked, focusing on the twitches, the movements of the creature's facial muscles, prepared to catch even the slightest twitch.

However, this time, there was no reaction from the creature, its eyes didn't follow the direction the old man was pointing at, its face retained its rigidness. It was as if it either didn't understand or just simply ignored any further attempt from Captain Don.

…

After some time, Captain Don had to give up for the night. After that momentary slip from it, the creature had no reaction at all. Its 8, dark beady eyes were fixated on the captain, not moving in the slightest. It did not respond to any question, no matter what or how the captain tried to phrase it.

In the end, he could only heave a defeated sigh and leave the creature to itself. Captain Don shook his head as he stood up and took a step back.

"No matter… At the very least, we can be sure you know of the place where that young man should be… Though from your expression he might not be in the safest of places he could be…" He muttered as he turned around and left. 

Even if he was ultimately unsuccessful tonight, he was certain eventually he would reach the creature. He could only hope that it would happen sooner rather than later, as time was not something they had with abundance. 

…

Time passed, the darkness of the night eventually descended upon the group. Leaving the creature chained up at the center, apart from those that were on their nightly shift and kept guarding the premises, the rest of the team have returned to their own tents and settled down for the night.

Inside the largest tent of them all, the medical tent, Aina, Eina, and Naybeah were now seemed to be in much better shape than before. After all the effort that the seemingly fragile-looking matte, black-haired little girl, Galina has showcased, all three girls were no longer in critical states. The color of life returned to them, they were merely sleeping over all the wear and tear they suffered through the day. 

Those many, gushing wounds and claw marks were all patched up by Derick. The herbal mixture he created covered up most of their bodies with a thick wrapping of gauze making sure they were kept in place.

Their soft, steady rhythmic breathing was like calming, soothing music to anyone that heard it.

Sitting by himself at the still crackling campfire, Captain Don sighed. His eyes were lost in the sight as the orange flames licked the air, he was deep in thought, troubled by the many ordeals of the day. 

Their first day was nothing short of a disaster after all. One of their group member for some reason didn't come with them and was thrown to another corner of this unknown world all by his lonesome. 

Though thanks to the mysterious connection the young girls seemed to share with the boy, they knew the general direction the boy was at, in reality, it didn't help his case that much. 

Unlike how the organizers, the 'Pillars' have explained, this world was far from being deserted, but it seemed that it was filled with dangers, unlike anything they have experienced back on Eora.

Captain Don sighed wistfully as he pondered about what the best course of action would be. Should he waste more time and energy on this creature and try reaching out? Was there any point?

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