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Chapter 123
Plans
Chirp chirp chirp chirp chirp chirp! Chiiirp! Chirp, chirrrp! Chirp chirp chirp! Chirrrrpppp! Chhhhiiiirpp! Chirrp…
……Uh?
Ann’s head almost exploded from all the noises that Birdie sent to her mind directly.
It’d be nice if it’s not just me, but the fact that only I can hear all these noises are infuriating!
When she heaved a long sigh and opened her eyes slightly… In that instant, she closed her eyes shut right away.
After all, how could she not do it when she saw literally everyone was looking her way with eyes full of expectations?!
Ann concentrated herself once more, but she still didn’t get any clue on what the heck Birdie was talking about…
Should I just give up?
Not even a second passed after she thought of it when she quickly decided with a determined mind. Her expression turned into a confident one as she decided in her heart.
Yes, let’s just give up!
Her mind was now clear as the day and she had turned off any feelings, as she used her signature move: ‘Haha, not like there’s anything I can do! I’ll be resigned to my fate, then!’
Oddly enough, right at that instant, several unfamiliar scenes and images flashed in her mind.
???!
She wasn’t really unable to describe the scenes and images, but for some reason, she got a very strong hunch–albeit unexplained–that Birdie hadn’t been able to talk it out with Rakiasha and other members of the Imparie tribe. It seemed that they managed to communicate through ways that Ann couldn’t comprehend.
But no matter how hard Birdie tried, her words never got through the Imparie tribe members who considered Birdie as a gullible small child that had yet to know anything, and thus she was deemed unable to make a good decision for herself, for she didn’t know better…
At that moment, Ann saw a scene that showed how Birdie was chirping at a wall, and she instantly understood that it was how Birdie felt–she felt as if she was speaking to a wall.
Ann closed her eyes and focused on sending a certain image off to Birdie.
Why not use violence?
Ann pictured Birdie rampaged and destroyed the said wall.
Then, Birdie transmitted a series of horrible scenes where it all told the same thing–that the Imparie tribe had lots of members while Birdie was just a lone little bird, and the difference in their power was quite significant that it’d be useless for Birdie to try using violence against them. And Birdie wasn’t that stupid to try something useless!
Eh… Wait what, does it seem Birdie is smarter than me?!
Ann’s expression twitched, but she definitely won’t be admitting that!
Quite some time had passed with Ann silently making various expressions. Elder Matthias was getting impatient as he cleared his throat quite loudly.
Ann heard this, coupled with the fact that there wasn’t any new situation on Birdie’s side, so she decided to open her eyes and tell them what she managed to get.
“…So, in conclusion, Birdie can’t really do anything. Haah…”
“…This is bad.”
“…What do we do?”
“How can you talk with Birdie?! Is it real?!”
Amongst the voices concerned about what they should be doing next, there was one eccentric question, and obviously it came from none other than Laura.
Fremont looked at this silly adopted sister of his with a dumbfounded expression, while Prince Kiehl stared at Laura with a reprimanding look as he said, “Now’s not the right time and place to do that, Laura.”
“Ah, you sounded like a famous quote by a famous video game chara–”
Ann quickly put a hand over Laura’s mouth to prevent her from talking any longer than this, or the second-hand embarrassment would get onto her too…
It was exactly at that time that Allen, who had always been silent this whole time, suddenly walked away from them. Ann noticed it first, followed by the others who also stopped what they were doing and just looked at Allen, who still didn’t bother to utter even a word of explanation, as expected.
And suddenly, he unleashed such an outrageous action that made others’ expressions turned into [O__O]
After all, he suddenly blasted off a fire magic that was combined with the wind magic towards the ceiling of their room. How could Ann’s eyes not pop out of their sockets?!
The impact from Allen’s attack with the ceiling caused dust to fill the room, making everyone present closing their eyes reflexively.
And when the dust had subsided…
“No wayyyyy?!” Ann’s face turned into something akin to the famous screaming painting.
Her reaction was justified this time, because there was no damage nor scratch whatsoever at the place that was definitely hit by Allen’s fierce magic attack.
“This whole room’s imbued with protective magic,” Allen concluded without even showing any hint of surprise.
“Huh?” Ann turned her head, still not understanding what Allen’s words actually meant.
“We can’t just tear a hole somewhere to escape, huh? That includes the walls, the ceilings, and even the ground, I suppose?” Prince Kiehl said with one of his hands supporting his chin.
“No way?!!” Mila didn’t seem to accept this explanation because she suddenly attacked the ground furiously.
Again, it bore the same result: it seemed as if it wasn’t the ground that was hit fiercely…
“So we can only wait and… be resigned to fate?” Laura felt like crying.
“I refuse to accept this!” Mila became even more furious instead.
“What can we do, though?” Fremont responded to Mila, who went silent.
“Hopefully someone from the Imparie tribe comes back soon so we can talk it through with them” Prince Kiehl said with a deep frown, clearly feeling like the solution he just uttered wasn’t exactly a good one.
“…” Allen remained silent, seemingly deep in thoughts.
“………Yeah, we just need to wait,” Ann seemed to be mulling over something.
“You got an idea?” Mila asked curtly as she looked at Ann with a judgemental stare.
Ann turned to look at Mila with a frown and an expression that clearly said she didn’t like the way Mila treated her as she also said with a slightly colder tone, “No need to be this cold to me, right? Drop it. Anyway, I think they will come to us again, whether it’s to talk about something related to Birdie or give us food. I… think I can do something at that time.”
Mila was surprised at first listening to Ann reprimanding her behavior, and her expression loosened up a little bit, perhaps even she herself understood that her behavior wasn’t nice when thinking about how Ann didn’t seem to have done anything bad towards her… yet.
But after hearing Ann’s last sentence, she turned to look at Ann, but this time, it was an expression of utter disbelief as she shook her head as if thinking to herself, ‘What can this girl possibly do, anyway?’
Other people had similar expressions to Mila, with Elder Matthias and the priests having exactly the same expressions, meanwhile Fremont, Prince Kiehl, and Allen were more curious than disbelieving her.
Only one person had very positive feedback as well as an expression that showed their complete belief in Ann.
“So, you’ve got a way? Why don’t you tell us? Anything I can do to help?”
Ann was touched hearing her best friend believing her this much. Though it was the same back then in the modern world when Ann and Laura worked on a joint task, it was a different matter this time.
As expected, having a best friend that has known you for quite a long time, and a best friend from your original world to boot, is really comforting.
Eh, but with her believing in me this much, I’m doomed if my method doesn’t work…
Hold on, why is Allen–my man–looking at me with a curious expression that doesn’t radiate his trust in me at all?! Just you wait, Allen! We’ll have an extensive talk later on when everything’s calmed down!
“Not really, but everyone will definitely know what to do later based on the situation later… That is, if it works out…,” Ann nervously responded.
Since nobody had any other solution, they just remained silent after that, before finally having discussions. More like, Allen, Prince Kiehl, Fremont, and Mila had a discussion about their situation and came to a conclusion.
Fighting back the Imparie tribe members that came to them would be out of option, for it’d bring about many problems quickly. First, one Imparie tribe member’s power was comparable to a few average normal human power combined. Second, if they were to make a ruckus there, one of the Imparie tribe members would report back to their higher-ups, causing even more troubles for their peaceful way turned into the way of violence with this action, declaring their intention to fight. Third, it was actually possible to do but the after-effects were troublesome and it might take a long time to clean the situation up… so they concluded that maybe it’d become their last resort.
“If your plan doesn’t work, leave it to us,” Allen said with a gentle voice to Ann.
“…Thank you, I will do my best,” Ann was touched by the lengths they were willing to go to such lengths for her, and took back her words about wanting to have a long discussion about Allen.
Giving Ann a chance to try out her method would mean that Allen had some trust in her, and coming up with a back up plan in this situation wasn’t anything bad at all! If any, it was important!
After a long while, the people of the Imparie tribe did come to see them to bring some food, as expected! Right after they turned off the barrier at the entrance in order to enter their room, they immediately circled the entrance so nobody could escape. It was a perfect living barrier of people, close to impenetrable.
That was what everyone else thought in their minds while sweating, thinking that this would be a very difficult situation to handle.
However, looking at the barrier that was turned off, Ann thought to herself: Now’s my chance!
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