Chapter 5: Pet Teacher (2)

1.

This sucks.

The worst part is I can't really say no.

The old tutor was killed? What kind of job was this? Am I just going to get hurt repeatedly?

Even with these thoughts running through my mind, I followed Immy, she was the one who paid for my clothes after all and paid to fix up my hair and general appearance.

I feel indebted to her now, even though I know she had something to gain through it all,

it wasn't just pure kindness.

She isn't holding my hand anymore, she is just walking by my side, slightly in front.

"It's the next left here."

There were a lot less buildings here since everything was more spaced out and vast, the buildings were a lot fancier and larger with large gardens, a lot of the cave had been covered with grass and flowers in this fancy part of the city, making it look almost like the outside world without snow.

Makes me wonder how these plants even survive down here without sunlight, the only light source are the crystals above and light posts on the street.

"Alright here's my little house"

Little? I take a long look at the structure in front of me, it has a path into a garden which is full of hedges and trees, then a huge building which sprawls widely, it was made of white brick and marble, giving it a 1800s government building look.

"Don't look so shocked, I'm sure in your memories you've seen skyscrapers"

Yeah, I have, but this was still shocking, in my memories I lived in a suburban area with my family, so houses were fairly small, this seemed like a whole mansion.

She smiles at my reaction and grabs my hand.

"Come in, you'll have to meet my daughter"

Has she just completely forgot about our deal?

She pulls me through the garden, flowers of distinct kinds paint the green grass with color, there were even flowers that seemed sort of alien, striped flowers with gold streaks in them coming from vines that spread on the wooden fences.

They were beautiful.

The straight walk through the garden took around 1 minute, finally, we arrived at the front door.

Before I could even say a word, someone opens the door for us and invites us in, it's what looked to be a maid, dressed in a formal black dress, similar to what someone would wear at a funeral.

The maiddidn't say anything as I walked through the door with Immy.

All she did was look me in the eyes, she couldn't be much older than me, or how old I seem to be, I mean I know my body is young since I can't age and all.

She seemed around 15.

I really hope this person is actually being paid for their work, the mention of slaves earlier kind of gave me a bad feeling.

But wow, the manor was beautiful, the entrance was vast, there were pink and white marble tiles on the floor and a red carpet that leads the way up the staircase to a second floor, everything was so open.

The use of pink gold on the large curved door frames and staircase railing gave everything a rich French European look.

Not to mention the chandelier on the roof made everything sparkle.

Immy made her way through the opening on the right. I was standing stupidly gawkingat the entrance.

The maid walked up to me when Immy walked out.

"Pardon my speaking, Are you the new tutor? You seem young." She questioned formally.

I look back at her, I hadn't really taken in her appearance, she had black hair which worked well with her clothes, giving her an almost gothic look, and black eyes, it was almost frightening to stare into them since I couldn't see her pupils.

Her hair was tied up neatly into a bun and her whole demeanor was that of professionalism, her sharp facial features make her seem like a very orderly and strict person.

Sort of reminds me of someone I used to know in the modern world, my piano teacher.

"I guess I am, nice to meet you, I'm Z"

I hold my hand out to shake hers.

She doesn't move.

Come on, please don’t make this weird.

I keep my hand out, hoping she will take the hint and shake it, but her hands stay behind her back.

I retract my hand, "Okay... it was nice meeting you"

"You too, my name is Emily"

She holds her hand out to shake mine, she is wearing black gloves.

What? Oh so now you want to shake hands, Is this some prank? Urgh.

I shake her hand, the gloves feel silky and warm, as we shake, I feel something being passed into my hand, a small piece of paper?

I hold the paper in my hand as we stop shaking and put it into my pocket, we exchange looks, she looks angry, but not towards me I don't think.

I go into the room Immy walked into; it was the dining room.

"I've got food for you, I was thinking, you probably ate nothing but mere berries out in the wild, so I wanted you to slowly expand your culinary palate, I started you off with some nice Hong Kong Portuguese chicken with a pear and lime rosemary salad."

What did any of those words mean?

The food looked delicious, how did she prepare this so quickly? Ah it was probably a chef who did this beforehand, I could see a room ahead of the dining room which had a kitchen and two people working, they were dressed in black suits even though they were cooking.

"Thank you Immy"

"Call me Imogen, I am your superior."

Didn't she want me to call her Immy? is she mad at me or something?

I sit down on the long table, it seemed eerie having such a big table with nobody but me sitting on it.

2.

The meal was good, I felt full, I haven't felt full in years, at my best I could catch 3 rabbits, but split between me and Amelia, it wouldn't be nearly enough, although I've never felt hungry either. Maybe I can't starve to death as well, that would be good.

"Alright, I'll go get my daughter, she is still sulking about the last tutor dying, such a shame."

She walks to the entrance then up the stairs. The goth looking maid follows her.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Well, no need to worry about any of this now, if I keep getting fed like this, I'm fine with any grunt work.

Oh! I should probably check out what that paper says.

I take the small piece of paper from my pocket, there is intricate tiny handwriting on one side of the ripped paper.

It said, "Get out of here right now, Diana will kill you."

Woah.

I wasn't scared for some reason, I mean I don't like pain, and I would like to avoid getting tortured.

But I can't die right? So, it's fine I think, I'm guessing this Diana character is Immy's daughter, we will see, I will be a good boy and stay here.

There is a reason as to why I'm so complicit, I want to be able to talk to the grown-up Amelia again, and make her not hate me, I'm sure if I act good Immy can get me in contact with her, wherever she is.

Although this lack of freedom is making me on edge, back in the cabin I had to do everything myself, now I feel coddled and controlled, it's not a good feeling.

A small girl with white hair runs down, she looks around 14 and is basically the same height as me, when she spots me in the dining room her hair becomes black.

Was I seeing things wrong? Was it just the lighting that made her hair look white?

She is wearing casual clothes that remind me of the modern world, it was a casual white t shirt and baggy black pants, very basic.

Is this really Immy’s daughter? Their facial structure looks completely different.

Immy had a sharper look with her jaw and eyes, giving her an almost predatory gaze.

But this girl's face was curvy in shape, her cheeks look plump and so do her lips. Her eye structure looks completely different from Immy’s too.

Is she adopted?

"Hello!! I'm Diana! But you need to call me Miss Abel!” She stands up proudly, taking a stance as she points at herself.

Immy walks in soon after, followed by the maid that looks at me and frowns.

Diana runs over to Immy energetically "is he really my new toy? He looks boring!"

Oh, okay rude, also toy? This situation keeps getting worse, I want to go back to when it was just going to be Immy studying my healing ability.

Immy looks down at Diana and brushes her cheek with her hand.

"Don't call people toys Diana, he is your new tutor, he is going to teach you how to survive out in the wilderness."

"But he looks so young!!! What does he know about adventures and monsters and awesome battles and big monsters and explosions mom?"

Diana quickly turns her gaze towards me, her hair turning white again in the blink of an eye.

Ah so I wasn't crazy, she can just do that for some reason.

"So! Have you ever killed anyone? Or maybe a monster!"

Hm, in the past years of the routine I had only come into contact with a few wolves and bears, no monsters like the leech thing I saw near the cabin today.

But I should lie, she is giving me hopeful eyes, might as well tell a fake story.

"I killed a bear once"

The girl's eyes lose interest instantly, and her hair turns black again.

"Which snow hunter hasn't killed a bear? Not something to brag about you know? I was talking about unholy creatures!!! Like in my mom's book!"

Please help me out here, I send Immy a concerned look and she decided to chime in.

"Your tutor here survived in the wild, alone, for over 18 years, that's pretty impressive is it not Diana?"

Why'd you say 18 years??? That's not going to make any sense to her, I look 13.

Diana's hair changes to white, it seemed to bounce a bit too.

"Oh my god really????? So, you were living out there!!!"

Diana grabs my hands, squeezing them super hard, it almost feels like she is about to break them.

"Yeah!" I reply back, trying to copy her mannerisms.

Why is she ignoring the part where she said I had survived 18 years?

Her grip gets tighter until my hands break from the force.

Ah shit that’s not good, let go please, please let go, how can such a small girl have that much strength?

I grit my teeth at the pain, my hands are completely mangled.

She lets go, and watches my hands closely, seeing the deformed purple hands slowly turn back to normal.

Even though I dislike the pain, it is satisfying having a painful wound quickly become a memory.

"Oohhhhhh…" she inspects my hands.

Then looks back at Immy, who has walked closer to the both of us.

"Can I have him???"

"Only if you don't hurt him on purpose."

Diana's hair turns black again, it almost seems normal at this point to witness this.

"Okay…"

She runs up to Immy and hugs her, Immy is looking at me with a satisfied face, then I see the face of the maid, it looks like she was crying but I didn't see any tears.

3.

"Okay teach, stand still."

This was NOT a teacher's job.

There is an apple on my head, and Diana has a bow.

A nightmare scenario.

She has an arrow readily pointing at me.

Apparently, my job is just to get her to not be lazy and actually train for who knows what.

I'm not teaching her anything I'm just supposed to entertain her.

I’m just the jester.

Immy told me before leaving me with Diana to just "let her do whatever"

We are outside in the garden, this was the first thing Diana wanted to do with me, I didn't want to say no since that girl could probably rip me apart with her bare hands.

The maid is also here, watching and giving arrows to Diana if she ever ran out.

I guess she is like Diana's caregiver then, nice.

Diana takes the shot and completely misses, then takes another, and misses.

Then another.

Then another.

I'm kind of happy she is awful with the bow, but I kind of actually need to teach her something.

So I speak up.

"Hey Miss Abel, you're holding the bow wrong, have your arm pull back to your shoulder."

I had used a bow before, in fact I used to use bows to capture rabbits before I figured out how to get them with my hands, so the bow slowly became redundant for me, since it was a waste of resources and space.

Diana's hair goes black.

"Well if you are so talented why don't you show off your skills, Emily, please put this apple on your head and stand by the wall."

“As you wish MissAbel” She softly spoke.

The maid nods and grabs the apple, quickly balancing it on her head.

Hey woah I'm not that confident, we literally have targets I can set up.

I object

"Hey, I can just grab practice targets, no need to inconvenience Emily here."

I could probably hit the apple, but I can't let this behavior continue.

She then pouts and teases me.

"Oh, so you aren't a bow master? So why are you trying to act like it? If you don't try shooting the apple off her pretty little head, I will."

Holy shit so she is actually an evil person, this is something a villain would say.

She smiles, her hair becomes white again.

Urgh.

I grab the bow out of Diana's hands and stand at-least 10 meters away.

I can't believe I'm playing this childish game, sorry Emily, just have confidence in me, okay?

I stare into Emily's eyes, she has no hatred towards me in her gaze, just sadness.

I ready an arrow and pull it back.

Woosh,

I hit the apple on the bottom left corner, way too close to her head, perhaps I got a bit rusty.

Diana claps,

"BRAVO!!"

Her hair is basically floating and jiggling in excitement, glowing white, which I don't really understand but it probably has something to do with a blessing.

After I did that, Diana seemed pleased and let me off for the night, my internal clock was telling me it was about nighttime, but I didn't feel tired at all.

4.

The library.

I decide to make my way to the manor's library.

Since I don't feel tired yet, and since I don't even know if I have a place to sleep, I decided to research things I could teach Diana and actually take my job seriously.

I also wanted to selfishly spend time far away from Diana encase she wanted to play anymore 'fun games.'

I doubt she goes to the library so it's a good hiding spot.

I open the door.

I was told by the maid that the library was on the second floor near the far end of the building, it was a pretty long walk.

I walk in and see a ton of bookshelves made of the golden streaked wood. They all have little letters on them probably to dictate the letter the books title starts with.

There weren't many books, but I guess it makes sense, 18 years of history isn't that long, and I doubt any of the books outside of this underground city have survived the climate.

Goodbye Shakespeare I guess.

As I walk through the bookshelves, most of the books are research on the strange phenomena that appeared after the snow arrived. Apparently, a lot more changed than just the climate.

I wasn't really aware due to me only going the same path back and forth from the cabin and never seeing anything new.

I walked over to the B bookshelf and picked up a few books explaining and documenting the different kinds of blessings, these were written by Immy herself.

I also picked up another book by Immy, the one she was apparently famous for, 'Unholy: the complete documentation of unholy creature phenomenon'

Boring title.

I sit these books on the table and begin to read them, it's all very interesting.

There are a total of 83 total 'unholy' creatures, doesn't include me yet of course.

these are separate from the mutated rabbits and wolves, that phenomenon was caused by 'rapid evolution' that started happening ever since the snow came, every animal on the planet has been evolving insanely fast.

The unholy creatures are ranked from E- to S+ in danger.

The one I wanted to find, was the leech I saw those two girls fight in front of my cabin, I had never seen anything like it.

I go through the pages, skimming them.

"The mimic, class C-B"

C-B meant B was the max danger a mimic could be if it consumed enough humans.

Ah, that explains it.

As I read through the document about the mimic, and the symptoms it gave when it was feeding off a victim, it sounded awfully similar to how I was feeling in that cabin.

The headaches, randomly falling asleep, heavy breathing, tiredness, all explained by the mimic feeding off me.

I was living with a mimic for 18 years?

Just then, the door opens and I hear high heels, it was Immy.

She stands in front of me, smiling widely.

"Hey Imogen."

I say formally, saying Imogen because she had asked me to earlier, perhaps some professionalism was good.

"Please. Call me Immy, you are off duty remember?"

My god, okay fine yeah sure I'll call you Immy, is she bipolar or something?

"Hey Immy."

"So, I heard about the fun you had with my little angel”

She sits besides me, awfully close.

Right… was she mad at me? I did shoot at her maid with a bow. Albeit Diana forced me to.

“I’m sorry…”

“What’s there to be sorry for? You did so well, my little tutor.”

She plays with my hair.

“Stop treating me like a child.”

“Oh but you are? You basically had no social upbringing in the past 18 years; you just act like a mature 13-year-old for your age. You’ve gone through so much let me pamper you.”

Is that true? I guess I’m still horrible at socializing.

Although I think she is slightly wrong, I definitely don’t act like the person from my memories anymore, I was once a spoilt brat.

But every day in that cabin blended together, I didn’t really make any memories there.

“So why are you here?”

“You suspect I have something I want from you? I just wanted to talk.”

Oh. Okay?

She is still playing with my hair, it felt kind of nice, she is like the mother figure I missed.

Suddenly she speaks up.

“Diana has been pestering me about wanting to go out and hunt animals in the wild, and I thought. Hm. You could do that!

You know the wilderness more than anyone right? Can't you take my little Diana out with you on a small adventure? Protect her with your life of course, lives."

She chuckles.

This was a lot to process.

"When does she want to go?"

"Well, I decided she should learn more from you, so like a month?" She puts her hands together in a begging motion.

"I would really appreciate it, I will owe you one, nobody wants to take my little Diana outside since they consider her a reckless person and will get them killed!"

Makes sense.

"Yeah okay, also what about the deal? With the whole studying me thing?"

"Oh? Eager are you? I decided I can just study you from a distance, I'm not even 100% certain you are an unholy creature, if you were one though I'd put you as E class."

She is looking down at the book I'm reading while saying that.

"Anyways, you must be tired right? Let me show you to your chambers, I got you a nice guest room for our special little tutor."

She gets up and tugs at my shirt, basically ordering me to follow her.

I really wanted to read this book more, but I guess that can wait until the morning.

I follow her, the room was pretty close to the library, something I think she did on purpose.

I'm having a really hard time figuring out if Immy is actually a nice person or a complete sociopath trying to manipulate me.

She opens the door, and it's pretty much what I expected for this huge mansion. It had a king-sized bed and a personal bathroom, along with a study desk.

It was nice, way more than I was used to and needed, it's like my whole life changed within a day.

Well my whole life did change in a day.

But I still wanted to be selfish and ask Immy something.

"Hey Immy?"

"Yes?"

She looks at me worried, maybe she thinks I don't like the room.

First I wanted to thank her.

"I just wanted to thank you for treating me so well, I haven't been this happy in a long time, I really appreciate it"

She smiles and lets out a little "awwwwww"

A little patronizing, but what I said was a bit wholesome.

I then ask.

"Is there any way I can get into contact with Amelia?"

She gives me a stunned look, thinking.

"Hmm…

I can talk to her, but I doubt she will want anything to do with you, last thing she said to me was that if I don't find a way to kill you, she will do it herself."

Oh.

"I can get you into contact with Sophie though, Amelia's close friend."

Why would that help? Is Sophie the one with the knives that sliced my neck open?

Urgh it's better than nothing.

"Sure, thank you Immy"

"No problem, I'll let her know you want to talk."

She smiles at me, it was heart warming.

I really don't know why she is treating me so kindly; I feel kind of like the cattle that gets treated well and fed a lot before being taken into the shed and slaughtered.

Immy closes the door behind her as she leaves, deciding the conversation was over since I was staring into space.

Alright time to sleep.

End of chapter 5.