[Zoe's POV: ]
Everyone liked how there was a big tree with big red leaves, one with small blue leaves, and a normal tree with many green leaves growing from the dead tree that seemed to have turned into a giant stone monument.
'It was pretty. Very pretty with the tall green trees all around us casting their unique shadows.'
It was fun seeing them all happy about them, but since we couldn't stop there for long, they could only play there for a short while before we had to leave for the next stop.
'Big brother was hurrying since he wanted to reach the place before nightfall, and seeing how they were taking so much time with all the small things, he knew he had to be harsh if we wanted to enjoy this.'
Everyone was upset that he was rushing then. Tia and others had even been cursing him since earlier and there were many that did not like how they were rushing things even though they could just take it easy.
We still had the entire tomorrow so there was no need to rush so much.
We had not encountered any creatures on our way since we started so everyone thought this entire mountain area was a piece of cake fun garden where they could have all the fun they wanted.
'But that was not the case.'
In truth, this entire mountain range, all nine of the mountains were filled with all kinds of energy beasts of various ranks.
'The master of these mountains themselves were a Divine beast.'
They owned every element existing on this mountain so they already knew of our existence and even though the others couldn't do it, I could sense the eyes that had shown quite a bit of interest in our movements until now.
'Perhaps big brother was the only person aside from me who knew about their hidden gaze.'
But he was already expecting something like this, so this did not surprise him at all.
He continued with what he was doing and led us to the second point, a small open area filled with countless colourful flowers that the others found more attractive than the flower fields that they had heard about from the other students and the residents of the island.
'Prince Claud's companion, Miss Ore who was an old resident of this island had told us a good lot about the unique phenomenon that turns many barren plains into flower fields, but even she was surprised to see this small flower area.'
It was pretty, and there were all kinds of rare and unique flowers here.
We even gathered some of them and carefully stored them as aunt Haze had taught us, and since this wasn't something that belonged to any of us, we were going to decide who the flowers belonged to after we got out of here.
For now, we decided to just continue since there was little to see in this place and moved on to the following destination that was located inside a certain cave.
'That place was creepy since it was dark, but after experiencing that haunted place inside the book, they had become a little accustomed to the dark and the creepy things.'
We passed the cave that was relatively boring and not that special and after that, we also passed a big grassland that wasn't that special.
'We then came across a great tree, a big tree with a unique ecosystem of its own.'
There were various cute and dangerous creatures that lived on this tree, but no one even dared to approach us since there were so many strong people among us.
I was here as well, so, they wouldn't dare approach us with any ill intentions if they wanted to live with their families.
'We were being watched by the owner of these mountains as well, so the bigger creatures were naturally staying away from us... at least, that was the case until we finished our work at this great tree and reached the last destination.'
Here, we had to fight.
It was inevitable.
-Booooooooooooom!
[{ "Help me here, Alf." }]
The others had not seen it until now, but now that they were almost done fighting, they noticed something that answered the biggest question they had.
"Hmm? What's... that?"
"Does anyone else see that thing or am I hallucinating?"
"Were you poisoned by some creature you dealt with for you to say that, Med?"
"No, no. Look... look at that thing on the ground."
Before us, there was a tall wall blocking us on all three sides so this seemed to be a dead end.
The rocks were sharp and from what we can tell, this entire area seemed to be the end of this mountain.
'There should have been nothing else across this tall wall. Just the ending slope of the mountain that we were on.'
Everyone had thought this to be the case, at least...
But when the creatures stopped and they had moved closer to this wall, they could see that the bottom edge of these walls wasn't connected to the ground...
In fact, there was no edge to an entire side of the wall, to begin with.
"Is that... a chasm?"
"Hey. What's that now?"
Some of us couldn't help but question how there was a deep hollow space present in the area where nothing should have existed.
But denying the facts was not something we could do in this situation.
"Everyone..."
Brother called out to everyone after he was done dealing with the last of the creatures and looked at everyone with an excited expression before looking at the hollow darkness present under the wall.
"That's our last destination."
There was a light in his eyes that seemed different from the excitement that he had shown to us until now, a light that a few of us recognized instantly.
"The cave of trials."
I could sense divinity from deep into this cave so it was easy to tell someone, or something divine was present in there already.
'This is the final destination.'
And after we cross this cave... we will reach the special place that had made even my big brother so excited.
"Let's rest a little, clean up the area... and go."
He was looking into the cave with his eyes shining with curiosity.
And, since we knew him well, we also knew that this curiosity of his was not going to cost the same to everyone present here.
Something is going to happen now, we were sure of that already.'
But, since we had come this far and he was the one to lead us all here... we might as well play his little game.
'Who knows? All of us might just end up earning something valuable from this~."