"It seemed like this world is lacking in technology." Helice muttered, still hiding behind the gun, which seemed poorly made, like clockwork; even from a distance she saw the gears shifting, and she found the design quite pleasing to the eye.
The man behind suddenly pointed the gun to the barn, and with a subtle click, a subtle bang reverberated across the ear; the thunderous sound seemed to split the sky. What followed was an eerie silence and a steady stream of smoke coming out from the mouth of the gun.
"The next word from your mouth better be the location of our grains, or the next fire goes in White Hair's head."
The burly man said impatiently, glaring in Helices' direction with the weapon still pointed at the sky, following which he adjusted the clockwork gun's position, his hand falling from the sky. Time seemed to have slowed down, then he stopped his hand midair as he pointed the cold weapon in Helices' direction.
'Guns in all world are all the same', I wonder if they use gun powder, Helice thought totally ignoring the fact that the gun was currently pointed at her direction.
However, a certain item she'd only heard about came to her mind before she quickly dispelled the thought. As for whether the man would kill her if Amis didn't give them what they want, he didn't doubt that for a second.
However, that would not happen; her little lover would always protect her. Amis had been treating her like an egg since she had been hurt, especially with the occasional headache.
In fact, it was due to this very reason that he had failed to produce extra; even she herself could only applaud Amis for his hard work. But there was only so much he could accomplish alone.
'Two heads are indeed better than one,' she muttered before shrugging her shoulders. With the combined efforts of both of them, they would often yield a good harvest, but after Snake Face, a man with supernatural strength, had hit Helice, she was in a coma for more than half a year before Minerva had transmigrated into her body two months ago.
Unbeknownst to Amis, what woke up after the coma was not his wife but an imposter.
Amis had been clearly intimidated by that warning shot. It was not as if the couple didn't have enough harvest to fill in the monthly quota; the thing is that was all they had. If they should give half of it to the red bandit, they would starve. Neither Amis nor Helice would have enough for themselves nor for the next harvest.
Their field was the smallest in the village; it would seem like the bandits didn't care. The truth is even if Amis were to provide them with what they asked, they would be back for the next harvest, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. The people of Golden Wheat village could only cower and hide.
Amis led the group to the warehouse; Helice, on the other hand, had long since returned to catering for the animals. She had already seen all that needed seeing, and it wasn't much.
'I need to find time to do further research on this planner energy.' Upon returning back inside the barn, Helice quickly got to thinking as she engrossed herself in her chores.
It goes without saying the planar energy and planar beings would be the number one subject in this new world; as a person who pursues knowledge, research was something she deeply enjoyed.
But any knowledge of magic is deeply guarded by powerful organizations; no matter how she thinks of this, there was naturally no way out of this. And the original Helice had almost zero knowledge of planner magi; only the great magi and powerful organizations had such secrets, and the only way to acquire them is to join one of those organizations.
And they often keep them contained. 'It seems knowledge of magic is a closely guarded secret,' Helice thought, but she isn't one to give up that easily.
'I need to get my hands on one of those acolytes.' Even she herself shuddered at the thought; the difference between acolytes and regular humans is as vast as the distance between heaven and earth.
After many moments of thinking, she could only come up with a single answer: become an acolyte herself. Although that sounds even harder, she had a few ideas.
"Hel, are you here?" A male voice suddenly cut through her line of thought as the barn door was pushed open by a pair of burly hands.
As a man adorned in shambly clothes entered the room, he stood 6.6 meters tall. From the golden light streaming into the barn from the window, the silhouette of the man seemed to cast a rather large shadow on Helice's kneeling figure.
She turned to face the man who just so happened to be her husband in this new world; he looked rather ordinary, to say the least, with short brown hair and a face wrinkled not from old age, but from the brutal strain of hard work.
Amis was only twenty-seven this year and yet looked like he was in his middle age; Helice herself was in her mid-twenties.
Looking at the man who had provided her with the life most people of her status could only hope for in a dream, Minerva, now Helice, felt nothing. She herself had never married nor had any real relationship of any kind back in her old world.
Helice turned before she could say anything; Amis planted a gentle kiss on her forehead. Even though Helice didn't have any feelings for Amis, she just stood rooted in place, allowing Amis's jagged lips to fall on her forehead, after which he pulled her into his embrace.
If anything, she felt pity for the young man; he had sacrificed everything for their so-called love. She could only hope he has the stomach for what may come.
The two stood quietly, leaning on each other, a gentle breeze filling the empty barn, rustling in Helices' long silver hair.
The moment seemed unending, as though they would merge with each other. After what felt like an eternity, Amis finally broke off the silence; his voice cut through the air like a gentle breeze through a clear pond.
"Everything will be fine, Hel; things won't always be like this." He mutters simple words of comfort, even though he knows he can't do much to deter the red bandits.
The red bandits were a cancer to the village, and there was only one way to deal with cancer. Helice nodded, with her head still smothered in Amis's chest.
After thinking for a moment, Helice asked, "Just how strong is that snake-face guy?"