image [https://imgur.com/A81NZgn.jpg]

Night time had finally arrived, and with it, so did our train heading for the capital city of Congerlin.

Marek showed up just in time to catch the train along with us. He’d been really busy dealing with the press and making sure that they were informed properly on the demon attack here.

But when he rejoined the party, I noticed Mella had left it. I wasn’t detecting her vitals anywhere nearby, so she just disappeared. She wasn’t even showing up when I combed through my map. Where did she go? Maybe she was tired like the rest of us and needed to go find some place to sleep.

Because it was so late, I conked out pretty quickly in our train cabin. I wasn’t quite asleep, but not awake either. Something about fully shutting down after battling in a dream world just didn't sit well with me yet. Thanks to my crystal heart staying active, I had a very low quality view and audio of everything around me. It kinda took the place of a dream.

-Entering rest mode-

Uncle shouldered me at his side, making sure I was secure enough not to fall over while we rested. Pretty much everyone fell asleep at that point, except Yamin and Indena.

Yamin was anxiously flipping through the demon book she’d received from the dream world, trying to make sense of the strange symbols and images. Her face twisted with funny expressions, her lips vaguely moved, as if trying to pronounce words she couldn’t read.

“Figure that thing out yet?”

Yamin’s heart skipped a beat when she heard Indena’s voice.

“You scared me…” she took a deep breath, pressing a hand closely to her chest until her pulse eased. “No… Not yet.” She closed the book and shook her head. “Sometimes I swear I can just barely read some of it, but then I realize I have no idea what that language is.”

It didn’t surprise Indena that this demon book was such an enigma, but she was pretty vocal of her worry for how affixed it was to her.

“I really don’t think you should be running around with that cursed thing,” Indena said. “Get rid of it ASAP.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” she patted it on the cover. “But you heard Yalda’s uncle Mel. Until we can find a secure place to study it, I have to hold onto it.”

Indena also noted that Yamin seemed way too protective of the book. At first she thought it was to protect people from the cursed fire, but Yamin wasn't even willing to put it down for a few minutes. It was always on her person.

“Do you even want that thing?” Indena asked. “You hold onto it like a diary.”

Yamin couldn’t answer that. She’d noticed her difficulty parting with it as well, but wasn’t sure why that was the way she was acting with it. “Something about it just… It seems like it should be in my hands for now.”

“Creepy,” Indena plainly uttered.

“I agree.” Miss Lauri suddenly joined the conversation, startling both the girls.

“M-mom?” Yamin spoke out. “How long have you been listening?”

“The whole time. I couldn’t sleep. Tee hee…”

Miss Lauri sure was an oddball. It really did look like she was asleep there next to Yamin. That wasn’t much different from me, since I was kinda listening in as well.

“Mind if I see this book?” Miss Lauri asked, but Yamin was hesitant to show her.

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Nobody could touch the book, so Yamin’s mother just leaned over her and took as close a look as possible. More than a few times she tried to take hold of it out of natural reading habits, but intense black flames sprouted up and forced her to keep a healthy distance.

Eventually, she did something odd and held her hand over the surface of each page, moving it around as if she were scanning it with the flame. Holding her palm so close to that cursed fire was brave of her. Indena looked especially on edge. I couldn't imagine why anyone would try something like that.

“What are these pictures of… Demons?” Miss Lauri asked, pointing to a night hag in particular. The flame happened to be covering it up, but Yamin knew what it was.

“Yeah,” Yamin nodded. “That one’s a night hag.”

“Night hag…” Miss Lauri parroted. “Ah! I see…”

Her hand hovered over the top corner of the page, right where some sort of title letters were prominently displayed above the picture. “Yamin, how many symbols do you see here?”

Yamin counted eight. Five in the first word of the title, and three in the second. Indena confirmed it.

“And how many characters are in the term, Night Hag?”

“Eight.” Yamin’s eyes went wide in realization.

“If each of these demonic symbols correspond to letters in the Euron alphabet, we have a loose Rosetta stone to translate some of this,” Miss Lauri said.

Yamin nodded, pointing to different symbols she recognized from the title. Suddenly, a lot of this page didn’t seem so alien.

They turned a few more pages, discovering the translation of other symbols as well. There were exactly 26 letters in the Euron alphabet, and 16 of them were present in all the titles of the entries. A, B, D, E, G, H, I, K, L, N, O, P, R, S, T and W. That was enough for Yamin to pull out a pen and paper and start jotting down some rough translations of each page.

“Holy crap…” Indena smirked, nodding at Miss Lauri. “You’re really smart… You remind me of someone I know.”

“Thank you. I hope whoever it is I remind you of, they happen to be a lovely woman whom you can look up to,” Miss Lauri winked. “As for you, Yamin, I think I’ve given you some interesting homework for the rest of the ride…”

“Yeah… I don’t think I’ll be sleeping tonight,” she nervously laughed.

I wanted to wake up and join them in this exploration of a new language, but my systems barely allowed me to listen in on the conversation. I decided I’d just check it out in the morning.

~☆☆☆~

A few hours passed. Miss Lauri actually fell asleep, leaving Yamin and Indena the only two fully awake.

Yamin still continued to translate different words, trying to figure out what unknown symbols were based on the familiar letters around them. She didn’t show any signs of exhaustion.

“You’re mom’s pretty incredible,” Indena complimented.

“She’s an archeologist, geologist and geographer. Literally the smartest woman I know. Learning languages like this is probably super easy for her.

“Damn…” Indena leaned her head back. “She’s got all that too, and she’s pretty for her age? Woman's got a lot of everything going for her.”

Yamin gave her a disapproving glance. “What’s that about her age? She’s only thirty nine.”

“Yeah, and in a year, she’ll be forty. That’s old.”

Yamin rolled her eyes. “You’ll be forty some day too, you know.”

“Don’t remind me.” Indena crossed her arms and looked all smug. “Nah, I’m just kidding. She’s a good lady.”

Indena must have been in a great mood if she was complimenting someone. It gave me a warm feeling to know everyone was getting along well enough.

“Hey, I… Uh…” Yamin turned from the book to look Indena in the eyes. “I wanted to thank you for protecting me. You and Yalda are so kind. All of you guys are, actually. But taking on Melpomene must not exactly be fun.”

Indena was a bit taken aback by Yamin’s positive words of thanks, even going as far as blushing. “It’s not like I like you or anything. I just hate that witch.”

Yamin's face clearly showed she didn't think part of that wasn’t true.

“Regardless, I appreciate it.”

“Yeah, whatever. Just don’t expect me to always solve your problems.” Indena leaned forward. “Helping friends is all cute and great when it's convenient, but you gotta be able to help yourself too. I know you Deula don’t understand that concept.”

“Oh, are we friends now?” Now Yamin was the one making a crap eating grin.

“Eh…” Indena's head bobbed up quickly and her eyes widened. “Did I say we were? Don’t read too much into it.”

Both of them shared a quiet laugh, making sure not to wake us up in the process.

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