Tranquility At Last

Trckrr, trckrr... trckrr trckrr.

"Won't you take a look at the wall of honor?" In the car, as it slowly came to be parked right before the mountain or simply stopped before being stored, Tini unbuckled her belt as she gazed at Ciemnosc with most of her eyes showing as she was still wearing those dark glasses below her nose and eyebrows. Ciemnosc looked at her and silently stared at the young beauty, who seemed so vulnerable now.

She seemed to notice it, for her body’s skin from her arms, shoulders, and collarbone to her face began blushing a most delicate and youthful red without any one of them saying something. Staying in this silent and warm moment, with snow not even being able to go through the magnificent array Ciemnosc had ever witnessed. Hence, it was rather slightly ‘warm’ out of the car and very comfortably warm inside of it.

“No, I’m not interested,” Ciemnosc said without parting his eyes away from hers. Her obscure blue seemed so lost in his darkest pools of eyes. Tini pouted slightly, Ciemnosc was already able to get the scent all over her body, but with her pout, he smelled an even more notorious set of flesh and unique scent from her pouty lips, it was somewhat addicting, exciting, and tempting - he could barely restrain himself.

Of course, she also reeked of flames and medicinal scent, besides her own corporeal, clean scent as a cultivator that could always maintain themselves clean…

“Well, I will,” Tini said, her pouty lips feeling extra under surveillance for some reason, with the sensation not leaving her until she eased the pout. Forming into a smile instead, Ciemnosc no longer had to restrain himself as his nostrils flared up one last time and Tini added, “But I will look into it later, I first have to show you around before it gets dark, it’s a lot of things, and we have to make sure to build all of your required thingies.”

“Okay, let’s go,” Ciemnosc said, nodding and gesturing towards Tini as if to stand up, but she looked back at him because of that in askance.

“...” - “...” Ciemnosc looked at the silly young girl for some more in silence with her doing just the same, until he finally said and made her blush deepen into a harsher red even more. “You leave first, I can store my baby without needing to step out.”

“Oh~, aha, right right.” With that Tini became a demon of red skin and went out of his commanding vehicle without saying another word once she stood up. Once she was out, she heard the wind rush as Ciemnosc appeared while his bum began falling down from midair and he expertly balanced himself very casually to land his feet on the ground.

Whoosh. Tap, tap.

“Ready?” Ciemnosc said while Tini was dumbly staring on when she heard his words, she woke up with a tiny little jump as her feet separated from the ground for a couple of inches before responding on her own. “Yup, let’s go up! Old Brother has been working on noticing more of the most basic herbs lately. He’s doing very well!”

And so, a slightly long walk began, with the 2 of them exchanging words here and there. Tini mainly being the one to speak and speak while Ciemnosc only talked when she was being silly and cute as well as asking things he wasn’t completely silent to or giving her an ultimately cold side eye for that matter.

“You know, this wall of honor is really great.” Tini modestly spoke, swinging her hips a little as she kept on sipping with a drinking straw at her nice iced drink with pink color and bubbles all around it.

Though one could walk all around the mountain if they wished to, they would take a goddamn long time even just crossing over a fourth of it, even up to half a day with the many ups and downs for stars and different levels of the constructed platforms and buildings all around the mountain. And so, there were many, many special Creature-renting services that allowed one to easily walk through the mountain and skip the long way towards their destination.

Which, in some cases, could be in a very tricky part of the mountain’s side or on top of a slightly flat surface around the mountain itself. And without the use of a mount or flying for those at the Conflagrate realm at the very least. Any other person could even take days walking towards it, this was practically also due to the low technological use of design, where without any kind of help, this was overly complicated.

Luckily, however, those Creature-renting services were exactly what made all of these things possible. It was also a lucrative business that nobody could own, and those who tried to make everything a little empire of business of their own were ‘prettily’ dealt with. Anyone who deemed himself worthy enough for a checkup to see if they could form their own little Creature-renting service had to be an incredible Caretaker, and only by being confirmed to be good enough would they be allowed to create such.

As for the ‘good enough’, it was no more than being way too good at Caretaking, able to make the monkeys, goats, and even many more agile but lithe and vulnerable tetrapods all obey him and become docile right away, also making them understand that this was a job and that they would be paid with not only shelter, food and security of their lives - but also some little things as well as helping in their reproduction in more than one occasion.

It was a pretty damn good thing for the Creatures, as there are even records of several dozens of these types of animals sometimes showing up all around the Rocaloi Academy’s territory, and hoping to be found by the students or staff of the academy. It sounded silly, improbable, and fable-like but that was only so for ordinary people - for the last 10,000 years or so according to what Ciemnosc now knew and Tini had added during this walk.

In the end, it was found out that there were a few deer and bunnies who ended up becoming anthropomorphic, becoming the surrounding territories’ leaders as they formed clans and even nations. But unlike what the Human Race and some other Beast Race were like, these were all too peaceful; this was the ‘true west’ for the last 10,000 years or so.

There was no communication between these and the Rocaloi Academy though as it was known to them that the Rocaloi Academy had connections all over the world, even getting a severely large batch of students every few hundred years that added up to their current incredible number of students and even of Obsidiafying realm cultivators at the peak. It was all… just so amazing to say the least.

In any case, these bunnies and deer anthropomorphic all chose to remain neutral, and they also became pretty strong soon. Their first Obsidiafying realm cultivator at the peak was just 1,000 years after their emergence. And in just over 8,000 years, they had at least a dozen of those, according to the almost negligible communication with all these brand new and old-since-then nations and clans of the Beast Race fellow neighbors.

“What about it?” Ciemnosc asked in return for her comment. She smiled and bit the straw, revealing such a tender beauty that asked Ciemnosc to hurt her a little, somewhere about picking her up and bashing her waist or something. But that was something of just a thought, an instinctive one at that.

“Well, for all the time that our ‘little’ academy has been established, there’s been over millions who were our best leading students and black horse of our students. Where they all tried, over the academy’s existence, to gain at least the title of Genius, like you have.” Tini said, her head looking up at the Grand Lecture Hall at the very top of the mountain, her neck like a swan seeing no predator nearby. And Ciemnosc’s thought went back to when he was eating the necks of those Conflagrate realm cultivators to cool off.

“None of them got it, the academy has the most strict requirements for even the first title to be won, let alone the next one or the most glorious ones of them all,” Tini said, her eyes shining slightly and her lips protruded and pressed against the drinking straw while sucking on it.

“What else is here for titles?” Uncaring, Ciemnosc asked as he kept walking, not a single part of her body out of his senses and eyes, not a part of her body out of his instincts or ordinary senses like his sense of smell.

“Oh, you curious now?! Heey heey, won’t tell, surprise me and Old Brother for you to know if you don’t want to go to the wall of honor.” Tini said, hopping around a little bit and bending her back forward a little to stick her tongue out once again before going back to walk with a straight back and taking the lid off her drinking bottle to directly gobble down the small ice cubes and pink bubbles and liquid.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Paaahh~.” Exhaling out so comfortably, she noticed another Creature-renting service up ahead and her eyes shone this time, unlike before when she just wanted to walk and Ciemnosc simply agreed and followed suit. “Now that I remember, there are things I’ve got to tell you. Like where we are going now, would you like to know, eh, eh, eeh~?

“Mm, sure.” Ciemnosc looked at the Creature-renting service building up ahead and saw that it also seemed to have hundreds of Creatures still in the building, which are all large enough to provide for the millions of students and leading students that go up and down every day. He stepped towards it with Tini ‘following’ after him, her feet cutely acting silly as she followed his feet to also change in that direction.

The platforms for walking weren’t that wide, as many opt to use the Creatures, but there would still be tens of thousands of people walking around the mountain every day. This is why these platform pathways had to be wide enough besides resistant enough without the use of array formations in the first place. And all of this was getting inside the boy’s mind as they talked and walked. It was somewhat new, but there were array formations for whatever situation of an accident or even an improbable invasion were to occur to hold this mountain and everything around it.

“Well, our 2 eminences have long left this world, in part because we weren’t good enough and in the rest parts because they didn’t belong here. We were unworthy, as our founders wanted only to hide for a long time before coming out, instead of showing themselves from the get-go like ordinary organizations and starting ‘terraforming’ the filth of the world.”

Tini said, and once she finished this bit, she looked to her left to set her eyes on him. Her obscure blue eyes twinkled, adding a comment up next. “We don’t hide this shame of us. We deserve it, and… well… those founders themselves understood their mistake from their very own generation. But it was too late back then.”

“Ahem, as I was saying…” Tini cleared her throat as if she was an ol’ granny with her students all listening attentively to her. But it was only Ciemnosc who was interested in this little history lesson. “Because of that, the only one remaining eminence that was still alive suddenly disappeared, it was unknown whether she left this world or simply went into hiding across the world.”

“As for the other eminence, he had died long before the other eminence left the world and Rocaloi Academy was founded,” Tini said while her eyes were looking sheepishly up at the sky, adoration, and veneration in her everything. “It was unknown her realm back then, but it is more than sure that it was beyond the Obsidiafying realm.”

“Maybe even all the way to the end…” Tini said in a breathless demeanor, extending her right hand up white nudging with her left hand at Ciemnosc’s right sleeve. With the excitement of a little child, she said to Ciemnosc while still looking with her head slightly up, “I will become like her in the future too.”

“Who are they?” Ciemnosc asked, bluntly, and made Tini look down at him with silly mystery all over her eyes. She responded rather simply but also with a delicate, even womanly voice for her teenage self, “You will know once we go up, teeheee.”

“Come onnnnenanannanenann~!” After saying those words, and giggling cutely yet once more, Tini took his hand and rushed towards the Creature-renting services building. Her small body from the back as Ciemnosc was ‘dragged’ through the platform pathway and right into the building, it wasn’t long before they could be seen with a condor surging to the skies exactly towards their destination.

Whoosh whoosh, chiiirp.

On that condor’s back, Ciemnosc was at the front. While Tini had her arms crossing each other in front of the former’s torso, her face against his upper back as he was too damn tall to look over his shoulder and enjoy the sight that Ciemnosc was enjoying.

Ciemnosc could see how the side of the mountain, along with some flat but very small surfaces passed by quickly, and they easily made their way up. But the condor seemed to be uncomfortable with traveling this high up, not because of the speed at which it went up and up, but due to the altitude itself. Only when it was closer and closer to the mountain did it no longer feel burdened.

Pat.

‘Go closer. No need for sceneries like these, it’s just a mountain anyway.’ Ciemnosc ‘said’, his left hand on the back of the condor whose eyes looked back for a second in perplexion, before looking ahead and slowly leveling down its body and its belly eventually closer until only half a meter between its belly and the mountain’s side.

Chirp chirp, chirp~.

The condor let out a satisfied and oh so relieved set of sounds from its peak, letting the feathers on its forehead stand out in rejoicing, not daring to dart its eyes backwards to the boy on top of itself so as to not make a mistake and end up killing itself and the 2 kids on top of itself.

Feeling as if having a heavy duty now, the condor accelerated, its speed was incomparable to a Cloudless Eagle even as they were in the same realm of the Spirit Gathering realm so to speak, but it was much smaller with a larger wingspan only. In this way, it not only seemed more dexterous but also agile and incredibly potent in terms of quick reactions, the Power Energy flowing within it was swift and ferocious, but its fight was arguably too calm and gentle even; somewhat.

“Wooaahh,” from behind, Tini screamed harder at this time, and she grabbed his waist from behind with her legs, while her arms went up his shoulders and hugged his chest from behind. In this monkey's grasp, the curly, blonde, and obscure blue-eyed monkey had her face right on his nape, and right ear.

“My, my~!” Tini exclaimed, not understanding why this condor was being so naughty, but she liked it! And also, before she noticed his left hand placed on the condor, which was supposed to not be done in case the Creature of renting services got grumpy, she had already blurted out. “You have soooo many muscles, here and there, there and here. Oh boya! So firm and so many, so much, how does that happen? Are you really 12?”

“I am 11.” Ciemnosc corrected her, leaving the young girl appalled at the potential of this fuck boy’s future. She couldn’t help but feel as if she had kidnapped an innocent, cute, and rapeable boy that could very well fuck anyone’s brains out even now - not needing to wait even a minute. Ah, instinctive thoughts, intrusive thoughts - but they were just that with curiosity only.

“OH wah! Was that you? Oooh…” Tini finally processed her little mind and found Ciemnosc’s palm on the condor. But she slowly came to shut herself as he noticed the incredibly rare presumed always grumpy Creature actually looked like it was enjoying itself. As if it just couldn’t help but enjoy the palm of the boy, who was much younger than here, and in a way that just allowed it to comfortably not bother about the trouble of being berated back at the Creature-renting services building once it was done with this trip.

“Hmm, maybe you should apply to become a Caretaker, then get your own Creature-renting services up!” Tini said, trying to caress the condor, who emitted growls whenever her fingertips got into contact with the tip of its feathers. “Then, all the money from the mountain would be yours. Others would spend an hour or even hours walking here to your Creature-renting services building, maybe even using other services for that matter, hmm…”

“You will become rich! This is the dream of all part-time jobers out there who got nothing to do in their free time, and you’ll be making a fortune not just winning some extra pocket money for cultivation or future missions.” Tini no longer attempted to be the main character, simply resolving herself to watch how Ciemnosc even pulled from the condor’s skin, and the latter showed clear pleasure from the massage.

“Part-time job? When bored?” Ciemnosc commented, but he was kind enough to rub hard on the feathers for a few seconds before raising his right hand, holding her right wrist with his left hand, and palming his right hand with hers to share the sensation while commenting so.

Tini’s eyes went all lighted up, and as if a bulb showed up above her head, she nudged Ciemnosc to continue and to hurry up before they arrived at their destination, which would even take more than 2 minutes from now. She added with a clear interest in her eyes as her hands got a touch to touch with a boy’s skin for the first time, so intimately at that.

“Yeah! Between missions, I’ve seen that there is a kind of addiction among our students. While our leading students are more serious, pensive, and studious than ever before even as they were already crazy in those matters too. And whenever there is a break, like lately as I heard the headmaster and old headmaster had called for a cease of conflict momentarily with the ‘major’ organizations thanks to your assassinations and now knowing you’re alive…”

“Haaaaa-” Tini gasped a large breath of air that she let out through her previous long words and then continued after breathing a bit more. “The prices haven’t changed, but our academy seems even more lively than it always is, as we can now even go outside! But not for long. It seems that there are limitations for now to go out, only a few tens of kilometers from the Rocaloi Academy’s grand array.”

“For those who go on missions. They can get to explore anything else! It’s amazing! And I heard from Old Brother that some teachers fell in love with some neighbors. It’s all becoming like a fairy tale!” Tini was really excited as if she was watching a show become incredibly good out of nowhere, already being good then.

“We are… kinda all a fairy tale, no? Even the ordinary people have their views chang-” Ciemnosc tried speaking, saying with reason all on his side. But Tini patted his back many times with her delicate right palm and fingers before saying. “Nuh-uh, don’t ruin it, bla bla bla bla we get it aaaaaaaaaahhhh.”

And, indeed, she stuck her tongue out again. This time, however, she pressed her not small bobos on his back as they slowly came to a slow; they had arrived at their destination, and the 3 of them were just about the few buildings on the very large platform, circling it before the condor went over to the ‘landing zone’ which all rented Creatures are trained to recognize and safely land on or walk up to finish their delivery.

When descending, her breasts pressed even more against his back, her braless body ah. The young girl blushed crazily while hiding her blushing upper body from him by pressing even harder against his body. Teenagers.

…