Sleepover (8)

Maybe all things happen for a reason. It could be the world was trying to tell me my cave was worth the sacrifice if my escape was successful.

I hung my head as I began walking around the cave, kicking a pebble along the way. Kicking a bigger pebble on the side after the old one broke, walking into the route of puddles littering the ground. I looked up with my palms faced towards the roof.

Murky drops of water were dripping onto my head and hands, dirty as if some sort of bacteria were roaming around. My nose wrinkled from the smell, resembling moldy cheese when I went deeper into the cave.

In front of me, icicles formed of dull blue rocks were all over the walls. The scenery never changed. Almost like I was walking in circles. My hand grabbed my forehead. It wasn't time to be in denial anymore. The cave was smaller than I expected. There was no way the hole I dug leading to Ethan's trashed mansion existed anymore.

I flinched when a head popped out of the portal. His head turned left and right, briefly scouting the area. Logan, Luke's grandfather, stepped into the portal. His blue eyes brightened as his hand touched one of the muddy puddles. He seemed amazed, "this liquid is precious in the sense it'll create many rare elixirs."

"This is impressive," Allison, Luke's grandmother, agreed, sticking her head out of the portal.

"I never thought I would see the raw form of one of the most ancient forms of mana crystals," Logan nodded.

Oh. These were worth something. My poor cave. Was there a way to kick those people out?

"Rika, I know your foot is behind that wall on the left," his voice echoed in my direction.

Darn. I still needed time to plan my escape and not get my cave taken away.

However, since they knew I was here anyways, I stepped to the side to reveal myself. I quickly made up an excuse, "Rika wanted to practice for her next hunt. The rope and cave were for that same purpose."

"I wasn't trying to escape. If I really did, I would use disintegration on the barrier," I added.

"Can you take her to Joanna? They can spend some time together," Logan turned to his wife.

"Wait," I interrupted them.

"It's my cave. It's either you get out and take me to your daughter-in-law or we all stay here and you give me the money for the admission fee for visiting my cave," I stepped back.

Allison blinked several times and flipped her hair. She was annoyed, "I never did like you."

"I never saw your thankfulness towards us when we paid everything for you," she scoffed.

"You chose to waste your money that way," I mumbled, my head looking down.

A deadend was right behind me. How much more time did I have to buy? The last thing to do was get myself cornered.

"Just take her to Joanna, it's her job," Logan sighed, waving his hand.

"I was about to," she seemed disgusted.

"Hey," she turned towards me.

"You have two choices. You can either follow me or I can drag you out," she crossed her arms.

Allison waited half a second before she grabbed my wrist. She didn't look back, not caring if the heels of my shoes collected peebles and then dirt from the garden. My other hand reached out, getting farther and farther away from my cave.

"You know, I can walk on my own, right?" I timidly smiled.

She wasn't a person to piss off. My gut was saying she was a scarier person than Logan. In fact, I never had a good impression of her. Her grip became strictly tighter, almost breaking my bones when I lightly pulled myself away from her.

"I'm really not trying to escape," I tried to look wronged.

"I want silence," she tilted her head back.

Waaa, she topped my list of the people I wanted to avoid. And Rika's list was very very long.

By the time she tapped her screen and the door opened, she spared no second to start complaining, "I've never seen such a disobedient child."

"I did nothing wrong. Thanks to me, you get to explore a cave that's placed in an area resembling another dimension," I mumbled.

"Just stay nice and obedient," she brutally pushed me towards Luke's mother.

"This is exactly why I think you people hate me. You always torture me," I staggered.

"I'll take care of her for the rest of the day," Joanna tried to assure Allison.

"You better," Allison warned.

Less than a second later, the door was shut and I was stuck with Luke's mother. Since I was already captured to my doom, I gave up and waited for the torture to come, "are you sending me to the tutors again?"

Joanna stayed silent, as if she was still thinking. She directly looked at my eyes when she made her decision, surprisingly revealing, "not at this moment."

"We're supposed to spend time together," she noticed my confusion.

Huh? Logan wasn't lying? This was shocking and my time to reveal what I wanted to avoid. I immediately listed my top dislikes, "I don't like shopping for anything other than more entertainment devices. I'm also not your dress-up doll and if you make me study, you'll be able to top Allison in Rika's list of the most hated people in her life."

"It's not only you who hates her. Call her that in secret," she lowered her voice.

"Why should I?" One of my eyebrows lifted.

"I'm the one who gets in trouble if you obviously badmouth that old witch behind her back," she warily closed the windows.

"You're a really good actress," I was impressed by her skills.

At the dining table, she and Allison looked like the bestest friends, loudly laughing, playfully hitting each other's hands and shoulders. Almost like they were having a great conversation.

"It's one of the ways to survive in this family," Joanna admitted.

"You're right, this family is full of award-winning actors and actresses," she walked towards her arm chair.

"Just that your son never noticed it," I pointed out.

"You have the sharpest wits out of all my children," she elegantly sat down.

"Isn't it obvious? The best way to survive in this family is if they ignore you," I sadly knew.

"Your grades still need to improve, we can't ignore you when they're this low," she lifted her teacup.

"It's intentional. I need the Roselia family to lower their expectations for me," I bluffed.

"You already lowered them more than the bare minimum we accept," she looked at me in a new light.

"I can lower them further," I planned to escape before then.

"You're smart," she bitterly laughed.

"If I did the same back then, I wouldn't be loaded with this much work," Joanna seemed to be filled with regret.

"Give me some money and I can build you something with the technology the fairies use. They can completely stop time in one of the rooms for barely any mana," I saw myself in her.

"Can they achieve this?" She passed me a design plan.

I scoffed from the beauty sauna, finding it to be nothing compared to my waterpark I was in the process of constructing. It was unexpected to find someone in the Roselia family equally as miserable as me. The things she wanted were incredibly little, showing she was under their control as much as I was. I needed an ally in this family and she was reliable. I slightly smiled, "this is nothing to them. You can add more stuff as long as you provide an adequate amount of money."

"How much do you need?" Her eyes changed.

"Five hundred billion Aris. The currency exchange rates are harsh. I'm planning to also install a teleport gate to make the new mansion easily accessible," I quickly calculated.

"I can offer you nine hundred billion after I make some adjustments to this plan," she provided me with her contact information.

"Do you also know the weaknesses of the other members of our family? I need more money to do my other projects on a larger scale," I whispered.

"I'll give it to you later," Joanna warned me to lower my voice further.

"Do you want me to keep this a secret from Luke?" I offered.

"Luke is book smart. He's the complete opposite of you. He doesn't know the intricate family relationships here like you do," she didn't trust her son.

This was a sad family. I couldn't help but pity Joanna. Taking a glance at one of her offices, it was much worse than Luke's pile of usual documents. She desperately wanted a break from this, and her only option was where time stopped.

Unfortunately, if it wasn't for the fairy technology, it would be extremely expensive to procure, and no one would do it for a beauty sauna. The few places that did have it were mostly placed on barriers and only lasted for a short period of time.

Meanwhile, Joanna's idea was clever, giving me tips on how to merge the human and fairy technologies together to reduce the cost. She also gave me her approval and connections to start the first stages of the construction. I liked spending time with her as we had a common goal. Although I was initially surprised with the grudges that she held against the people who were her in-laws, it was reasonable.

"Lucius never had a good grasp of our family dynamics no matter how much I tried to teach him and the Suilett girl is too innocent and pure. She isn't marrying into another family and she was raised without any facades since she had a loving family," Joanna didn't like Belle.

"She fell for the entire play?" I guessed.

"You could tell by her face, it was genuine," she mocked her.

"Belle will never suffer from the strict control and pressure as we will," I instantly hit where the resentment came from.

"She's directly working under her loving and generous parents," she seemed a bit jealous.

"Lucius and that Suilett girl make a perfect match together. Her family practically raised him, and they can provide him with more freedom than we can. He is in a better place," Joanna didn't regret sending her son away.

"How are they so innocent?" I implied her children.

"I was busy with sending Luke to his heir lessons and there wasn't much room for anything else. His acting should be better than Lucius though. Lucius was always a little lacking as we were more lenient towards him since he wasn't the heir," she insulted them.

"And you made me suffer with Luke," I referred to the tutors.

"I never gave you the same material. The difficulty level for his soars over yours. I only have one daughter and it's you, my successor," she wanted to push her work to me in the future.

"Does Allison not do any work?" I wondered.

"That witch pushes nearly everything to me," she despised her.

"Would you like to know her weakness?" I softly whispered.

This was how Joanna and I became on the same side. It seemed she didn't know about the scandal of when Allison was younger. As promised, by the next mealtime, she sent me the weaknesses of each family member. Meanwhile, I gave her design plan to Micah and the money to exchange into Memors to build it. The Roselia family was never a loving family from the start. Instead, it was filled with a web of enemies and allies mixed inside.