POV: Lumine

Snakes! Damn snakes! I can barely see the color of their skin because of their bright lights, but then, the little skin that is visible begins to match the color of the surface they're on.

Oh shit, they can camouflage too. Not only that, their shape drastically change. They become thin and stretch themselves out, becoming flat. Even worse!

Vacinay is preparing to throw a chair at them, but Ghomas stops her. "I think those snakes are used as light bulbs in this world."

"Huuhhhh?" Vacinay questions him like he's crazy. "That makes no sense! There were no snakes back in that summoning room!"

Exactly! There was light, but no snakes. But... if they are capable of doing that now...

"How did you know? We literally just saw them change their shape and color," I interject.

I agree with him. "Yeah, that's a good point."

Damn, that means they could be on the floor around us as we speak. Wait, no. There's no light radiating off the ground. But wait... they can clearly choose to generate light or not. That's evident by the fact we entered the house in complete darkness.

I move around slowly, preparing to react quickly if any snakes were to crawl up on me. Which brings up another question. What if they're also capable of changing their sensations? I already hate this damn world.

Ghomas isn't even bothered as he proceeds to walk down the hallway, checking out the place.

How isn't he worried?

He makes remarks, "This place isn't so bad. It's pretty damn big too. I kinda like the red and black wall paintings."

He touches the walls, which have various huge flat gemstones embedded in them. Even the tiles on the floor have gems. There are also paintings of sunsets, full moons, and other beautiful scenes. Nonetheless, no matter how damn beautiful this place looks, it isn't good enough to distract anyone from the fact that it's infested with snakes.

Ghomas notices our hesitance and stands disappointed. "Really? What were you going to do, go call the president and cry that there were snakes here?"

I mean, that sounds like a good idea! Except it really isn't, considering we're the defenders of this world. We have to act like it.

Hessien moves towards Ghomas cautiously, his eyes darting from the walls to the roofs repeatedly. Vacinay follows suit, her back glued to his.

Immediately, I rush and stick myself by his side. "You know, since we're family and all, if a snake were to attack me, you'd have to risk your life for me."

"Now, why would I do that?" Hessien responds.

"Simple. Didn't you use to defend me back in high school when I got transferred there? You've got to have that flashback of the past, have that character development moment, and then turn back to your old self, defender of Lumine."

"You... are more of a nerd than I thought... Also, you don't even know how the damn trope goes. I would need to be the opposite of what I was back then, like a bad guy or something."

"Yeah, yeah. It doesn't matter to me." I say that character development thing as a joke, obviously, but I guess it's more to make the situation at hand seem less serious.

As we move, we aren't attacked or anything, so slowly things feel more comfortable. There are over four big bedrooms, one huge kitchen, and other rooms, including a library with endless books. This place is maybe thrice the size of my original home. It doesn't look that big from the outside. Also, whenever we move to a room that lacks light, the light snakes crawl in to illuminate it.

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I wonder if we have to feed them or if there's a vent for them to exit and go hunt animals, then come back inside. Not sure which I would prefer. I'm kind of worried about them bringing back their prey and leaving remnants in the vents. But I think snakes swallow their prey whole.

After walking around the house, we decide to take a room to discuss some matters. Entering the room, it lights up. It has enough space to fit five beds. It simply has a single huge bed with a red mattress. Vacinay inspects it and then says, "So... do you all think the bed sheets would be clean? Do you think they clean here regularly?"

"Maybe they have some weird bugs that eat up the dust and so on," I mutter.

She cringes a bit. "I guess I would have to start with a bug army before evolving to a centipede and dragon one."

I don't even react to that. Instead, I walk over and slap the bed to see if any dust will rise from it. It doesn't happen. I then look at my hand to see any dirt of any kind. It's clean. Well, I don't see any dust around the house either.

Hessien then jumps on the bed, bouncing up and down a couple of times.

Ghomas joins in. "Super bump!" he leaps at Hessien, who easily dodges his attempt to crush him. However, he doesn't escape Vacinay, who jumps onto a nearby chair before she launches at him.

He panics as he tries to evade her by getting off the bed, but she falls on his chest.

"Ugh!" He moans in pain.

She then gets off him. "Okay, that was kinda fun."

"No, it wasn't! My chest hurts!" He screams.

In response, Vacinay stares, then head-butts his chest. "Take more pain!"

"Stop it!"

I sit on the bed, waiting for them to finish. Well, it escalates to Hessien holding Vacinay in a neck lock.

"Okay, you've got five seconds to apologize," He demands.

"Ow ow!"

"Vacinay, you've got four seconds. Don't let me use the neck-break technique that has been passed down in my clan of assassination since the millionth century."

She laughs a bit but joins in on the role play. "You... you wouldn't dare use the forbidden technique that was responsible for causing the division between the Mega family and the Duba family! My family!"

With great sadness, he replies, "Yes... I—"

Before he can finish, she bites down on his forearm, sinking her teeth deep.

"My arm!" He releases his lock and tries to pull his arm back, but she refuses to let go, similar to a dog.

He tries to run away, but that's pointless. So instead, he presses his hand under her arm and tickles her.

Her body shakes, and soon after, she releases her teeth, laughing and moving frantically from it. "Okay! Okay! Haahh! Stop!"

"No! You made me bleed!"

"I- haha! I didn't mean to!"

He increases his pace.

So she screams, "If you keep this up, I will pee! And since I am this close to you, it will get all over you!"

Immediately, Hessien pulls his arm back and distances himself from her.

She laughs while trying her best to gather her breath.

She then points at him. "Ha. Sucker, I got you to—"

He swings the pillow, dropping her to the ground with a light thud.

"Yeah, yeah. Take more!" He throws more pillows at her.

She evades them and dashes at him. He tries to run, but she leaps and pins him.

She manages to pull the pillow out of his hand and raises it up in the air as if she has a knife.

She speaks in a cold voice, "It is sad that I have to do this to you... old friend."

Instead of playing along, he pulls her leg that was on his chest and bites it.

"Ouch!" she bellows and falls off him. "It is only cool when I do it, damn it!"

He rushes to the pillow. When he gets it, he flourishes it like it's a sword. "I now have the advantage."

Okay, I've had enough of this. We have far more serious things to discuss than this dumb shit. At least Ghomas is busy checking out his legendary card, which is what we need to examine.

I say in an authoritative manner, "You all can stop the nonsense and focus on something more important."

"Like what?" They both ask.

I summon my legendary card and spin it in the air before catching it.

They get the idea.

"We need to know everything about those cards. When you all used the skills, did any of you experience something weird or different?" I ask.

Vacinay is the first to respond, "Probably the same thing as everyone else. Skills used something called energy points. It didn't exactly feel like stamina, but more like a type of energy was being sapped out."

"Yeah, same."

"Same."

The other two respond.

Well, I couldn't use any card skills, so I don't have an idea what they mean.

I ask Vacinay, "When you transformed, did it feel painful?"

She nods. "Like bloody hell. Why do you all think I was moving so damn weird after becoming that iron fur cat?"

"Ugh... because you had a completely different body?"

"Yeah, that was part of it, but I was also in so much pain that I was afraid of moving. But the pain only lasted a couple of seconds after transforming. It was more like remembering the pain. When I turned back to normal, the transformation was hell, but it didn't last that long. I honestly wanted to scream in pain, but if I did that, I wouldn't have seemed cool."

Hessien looks at her skeptically. "Seemed cool? You were naked."

"... It... bruh, why did you bring that up?"

"I don't know, I just remembered it."

"Well. Don't."

"Meh."

I ask, "It has to do with Ben 10, didn't it?"

She blinks a couple of times. "Obviously."