"So you followed us." Alan responded calmly, he didn't seem surprised, in fact, he wasn't.
Earlier, when Lucian woke him up, he already noticed Julia and Iris were simply lying in their bags pretending to be asleep, surely Lucian noticed it too.
But what caught him off guard was the fact he didn't sense Julia, she appeared like a ghost, he didn't know from what point she was stalking them.
Julia didn't reply, still staring into Alan with the same blank expression, he couldn't read a single thought behind those eyes.
Behind Julia, Alan quickly noticed a different pair of eyes, bright golden, with beast-like vertical pupils, Iris was here too, also gazing at Alan with the same flat face as Julia.
"So this is the secret you were referring to?" Alan continued speaking as usual, lifting the book in his hand.
"Yes." Iris responded, looking at the books stacked on the table.
"I see." Alan nodded. "But why are you two looking at me like that?"
"You read the books, no?" Julia spoke up, her lips still flat, eyes still locked on him.
"Yeah, I did." Alan confirmed it, tossing the book in his hands on to the table.
Very slightly, Julia's expression hardened, so did Iris's seemingly becoming wary of something, but remained silent.
"Why?" Alan questioned, raising a brow.
"You know why, I'm an..." Julia started speaking but trailed off her sentence, staring down at her own feet with a blank face.
"Experiment?" Alan smirked. "So what."
"...Huh."
"Well, it's pretty obvious you're the result of some bullshit the emperor pulled out of his ass." Alan shrugged, gesturing towards the books. "Hell, you might not even be fully human."
Julia's expression darkened the more Alan talked, her face clouded over as her lips slightly scrunched up in restrained emotions.
"But so what?" Alan brought his thumb and middle finger together.
Snap
And set the books, along with the entire table ablaze, bright violet flames ignited, dancing together in harmony.
Every crimson eyes of the abyssal creatures shifted their gaze from Alan to the burning flames, staring with widened eyes.
They weren't the only one, Julia's expressionless face cracked, her lips remained pressed into a thin line, though her eyes widened, reflecting her bewilderment, so did Iris's.
Alan walked away from the burning pile of wood, moving toward Julia and Iris,
"You're coming to the south with us." Alan stood in front of the two, smiling, he pushed a hand forward to Julia. "Right?"
Julia's face was empty, well, not so much anymore, her lips pulled down, her eyes wrinkled.
"Why?" She asked, her tone full of uneasy hesitation. "I'm not human..."
"Yeah, Sparky isn't either, he's coming with us too." Alan scoffed. "So what if you're not either."
Alan didn't care much, if she was a human or demon, she was just the product of something the emperor accomplished, but ultimately, she had her own mind, her own choices and direction of what she wants to do.
So why reject her existence for such a reason? Alan himself could be considered more bizarre than Julia, he was the reincarnation of a man from a different world, something he still didn't understand completely.
"Is that so..." Julia finally sighed after a long pause, it was a sigh full of relief.
Raising her hand she grasped Alan's palm, pulling each other into a handshake, looking up at him, she smiled, with her usual carefree self.
"Please take care of me then."
"Yeah..." Alan awkwardly smiled back, shaking their connected hands, still he wondered why the hell she had to make it sound like that.
Glancing behind Julia, Alan noticed Iris, who just offered a thumbs up with a small smirk, as if saying good job.
Just as Alan was about to speak again, Lucian arrived from his inspection across the whole underground.
He looked at the burning flames, then at Alan holding hands with Julia, and just offered a simple thumbs up with a small smirk.
"…Let's just get out of here." Alan muttered, feeling a bit weird, he pulled his arm to undo the handshake.
"Hmm?" But Julia didn't release his hands instead gripped it tighter and tilted her head.
"The hell are you doing."
"I thought you wanted to hold hands?"
"No, what the hell." Alan tried pulling his hands again, but her grip was way too strong for him to even budge. "Do you not know what a god-damn handshake is?"
"Isn't it when you just hold hands?"
"No it's not."
"Oh…" Julia slowly nodded with a serious face, as if coming to an understanding… but still didn't let go of her hands.
"Man, let go!"
"Why?"
"Release me!"
"Nuh uh."
"Unhand me!"
"I no, no wanna."
"What the fuck!!!"
...
"How deep is this place anyway?" Alan asked, curiously wondering about the depth of the area.
The group of four were now ascending the same stairwell Alan and Lucian previously descended, walking up the same dark space as before.
But this time they had Iris, paired along with her Affinity, it made traversing the dark much easier.
Her mana core was directly linked to the Affinity of light, literally light, it's the most versatile Affinity Alan ever heard of.
She could utilise light to create devastating offence attacks, use it for protecting herself, and even use it for off combat instances such as right now, lighting up the path forward with a bright yellow glow using her Affinity.
And the most absurd thing about her Affinity? She possessed healing properties, the most unbelievable thing Alan ever heard of, she couldn't only attack and defend, but also act as a support?
What the fuck? Finding humans with abilities related to healing, were rare, extremely so, Affinities wasn't known for being of the supporting kind, no they were offensive or defensive.
Not to mention Iris's healing capability wasn't low, and it would only become greater the stronger she grows.
Beast folks, especially elves, were widely known for producing healers capable of mending horrible wounds, but Iris could do just that.
So it was the biggest jackpot Alan ever struck, having such a reliable person stringing along? Holy hell, Alan must have saved the world in his past life... Oh wait, Leon did a few times...
"We never measured it." Iris responded, snapping Alan out of his thoughts. "But it's deep underground, it's also very long, it even stretches into the districts."
"So the underground is that big, huh?" Alan rubbed his chin in thought, he took notice of the fact there were thousands of abyssal creatures captured and stored below the entire capital, he didn't fully explore it, but he couldn't see an end to the creatures.
"Isn't that, like, horribly dangerous?" Alan voiced his thoughts, surely it couldn't be safe to be handling such things under the capital city of the continent.
"No, it's strange." Iris murmured, frowning slightly. "They aren't normal."
"Yeah, no shit, I noticed that too."
"They're failed experiments of whatever the emperor attempted." Ignoring Alan's remark, Iris continued speaking. "They can't move and are just stuck there in place."
"Is that so..." Alan nodded in understanding. "But how did you guys even find this place?"
He looked at his right arm when asking, as the question was directed towards the unpredictable creature whose name just so happens to be Julia, she was still holding on to his hand and practically dragging Alan up the stairs like a sack of potatoes.
"Hmm." She frowned slightly, thinking to herself, completely ignoring the dismay on Alan's face. "Coincidence?"
"The hell?"
"Well..." Julia paused for a moment. "I guess, I was always kind of drawn to this place..."
Alan fell silent, allowing her to speak.
"When I was younger, I truly didn't want to remain in the castle, but had no choice." She openly admitted her dislike towards the royal castle. "While trying to escape, I found this open area..."
"I was surprised to see that no one, not even the servants at the castle, frequented this place." She mumbled her words. "And the plain grounds, with just a river and trees just felt like an area I could breathe in."
"So I just moved here, planted the flowers I liked, changed the place as I wished, stayed here instead of my bed chambers." She paused for a moment, her eyes becoming downcast. "...No one even noticed..."
"But I sort of always felt weirdly drawn to the forest." Julia quickly snapped out of her small trance. "And eventually discovered the castle wall was an illusion."
"And we walked in, found undesirable things, tried to escape the capital and met you two." Iris took over the last parts of the explanation. "Which brings us to the present."
"I still don't get why your first idea was to go to the demon's continent, though." That was their destination for no real reason.
"Julia calls the shots." And Iris did indeed give absolutely no real reason, what morons was he even dealing with.
Alan sighed, giving up completely, he just allowed the humming Julia to drag him up the steps, as Lucian stared at him with a questionable look in his eyes.
"Can we just get out of this place..." Alan pouted, feeling wronged for some weird reason.