Dem's opposition

Still holding onto his mouth, Dem was determined not to let them go.

"Come on, you guys. What's so bad about staying in the village? The outside world is too dangerous. Please," Dem spoke.

"Zain, Gem, listen to me."

"SHUT UP!!!" Gem interrupted.

Gem couldn't hold it any longer. "What makes the outside world dangerous, Dem? Isn't it because of what exists beyond this village? Isn't it because of the beasts that are rumoured to roam around the forest?"

"Let's put the fantasy aside. There isn't a single problem that doesn't have a solution. If magic beasts exist, then what else can be the cure besides the powerful mages that we aspire to become?"

"You want to rule the world and make everyone fall in love with science? Fine, you have our full support."

"If you can't fully support us on our goal in becoming mages, then fine, don't bother us."

Saying that, they finally stormed off, leaving Dem defeated.

***

The fact that beasts roamed around outside the village was one scary truth that no one could ignore. Because of that, the villagers had to search for a way to protect themselves from these flesh-eating beasts.

They figured out one thing: these beasts eat nothing but flesh and, in the end, came up with a brilliant idea.

They planted an enormous amount of plants of all kinds and flowers around the village to mask their presence.

"Some beasts have a good sense of smell, but that's when the flowers do their job and mask the human scent with their sweet smell," Gem explained.

"Wow, that makes sense why there are forests surrounding us," Zain realized. "I never knew this."

"As for the plants, they provide food for the humans since they cannot venture too far. There are planted around, surrounding the village for easy access to food."

****

It was dead quiet and a bit windy as well. Zain and Gem were slowly making their way toward the forest.

"I'll say phase two is completed," Zain spoke, as the genius Dem was no longer here.

*Crunch* *Crunch* *Crunch*

The crunching sound was heard as the duo's legs stepped on the dry leaves that had fallen from the trees.

They were both wearing sweaters despite the hot weather. It has its reason though.

"I'd be lying if I said I'm not nervous," Gem said as he adjusted the giant backpack they brought along, containing everything that they would possibly need.

Zain turned his head towards Gem in surprise. "I can't believe I'm hearing such a statement from you, of all people. We haven't even left the safe part of the forest surrounding the village!"

"But rest assured; you have a good leader," Zain added with a slight smile.

"Shut it! Why are you speaking like some experienced jerk? You're not my leader," Gem barked, annoyed.

"Don't take my previous words too seriously. When I said those things and gave you a bow, don't let it get to your head. I was just... being sarcastic," Gem said.

"I have a question, Gem. Do you respect mage Green, the ones and only with green hair?" Zain continued.

"Of course I do. Green is my role model," Gem admitted, causing a slight smile to play on Zain's lips.

"That's good, so I'll tell you. As far as history goes, I don't think there have been more than two people with natural green hair: mage Green being the first, and me being the second," Zain said with a smirk.

"You said you respect the one with green hair right, so what's the color of mine?"

Gem paused for a moment before folding his arms and turning his face away.

Zain hair is quite long and jet black in color, but the tip of it is green.

"My hair color is naturally green, so you should respect me."

"I'll be the leader from now on," Zain concluded with a laugh.

Most people see Gem as scary, but not Zain. Even more than Dem, he could talk to Gem and make him show certain types of emotions that people wouldn't even believe a monster like him could show.

As they walked through the forest, the multitude of trees made it really dark, even though it was morning.

"So, Zain, what does the map say?" Gem asked.

Opening the page, Zain narrowed his eyes at the book.

"Hmmm, we'll have to go through these woods to get a good view of our current area." Said Zain.

"That means less than a minute from now," Gem responded with a smile.

"Huh!"

"You're not kidding," Zain exclaimed as he set his gaze forward. "I can already see the end."

In a distance away, they could see a bright area, deprived from trees.

"Now, the real journey is about to start."

*****

Inside a lab, a young blonde-haired teenager could be seen deep in thought while conducting an experiment on a table.

"How can they be so stupid? How do my fellow humans think?" he couldn't help but question.

There were countless shelve around containing different kinds of liquid. Where he stood was close to a table where he lay down his lab rat.

Pulling out his small knife, he tried to make a small cut on his test subject, but instead, he accidentally slashed the frog under restraints on his table, giving it a deep cut that killed it instantly. This always happens when something is bothering him during experiments.

"Or... is there a chance that the human brain could be for show and have no real use?"

"I think the best thing to do is to report them before they go too far. Report them to whoever is necessary before it's too late," Dem decided with a sad smile as he dropped the knife on his table.

"I bet they'll hate me forever for destroying their dream, but maybe after I stop them, they'll reconsider and understand that I'm only doing this for the best."

****

Zain's eyes were bulging with excitement.

"The gigantic tree with a V shape!"

"The large rock with the shape of an arc!"

"The crater with an unusually smooth texture!"

Zain was calling out all their locations from the map, only to see them the next moment on the horizon.

Everything was exactly as stated in the book, and this book, of course, was the sixth out of the seven volumes of the story of the legendary 'Green,' the one who defeated the strongest beast of his time.

The book that contains his story has seven parts. Actually, the entire reason for their adventure originates from a fantasy book Zain stumbled upon in a bookshelf back at his house.

The book is titled *The Adventure of Green*. Since childhood, Zain had loved things that go beyond reality, things that could only be imagined, like magic and so on.

When he stumbled upon this book, he didn't have anything to do on that fateful day, so he decided to read it. On multiple occasions, he had come across the book but continuously ignored it.

Before he started his adventure of reading, he hated novels, but this fantasy book changed his mindset. It was his first and his best.

After he read *The Adventure of Green*, he dived deeper into fantasy.

All fantasy books from all the libraries in his entire village had been visited by him. He had read all the novels countless times, and he knew every detail they contained.

As for the map, it was strangely attached to every one of his books—a map that leads to where the next part of his favorite book and many others that don't exist in the village are hidden.

Whoever finds any part of any novel has a chance to gain something magical, maybe even magic itself like Green, because every part is buried alongside a treasure.

This idea sounded lame to Dem; that was why he backed off from the suicide trip.

Soon, he introduced this book to Dem and Gem, and just like Zain, they both fell in love with it, especially Gem, who was as obsessed with the book as much as Zain.

They soon planned to check out the area on the map after many years and then fixed a date, which is today.

Zain was starting to enjoy the feeling he was having, and the way Gem was giving him an intrigued stare was only making him to want to draw more similarities between the map and where they were viewing.

"A giant tablet-shaped egg that hatches when touched and belongs to a beast," Zain read aloud from the map and then began to search for it.

*Crack*

They both paused as quietness etched the air, trying to find the source of the noise.

'Could it be that Gem stepped on the dried dead leaf around the forest?' Zain wondered, but that wasn't the case because they had already left the bushy area and were now in a very sandy area, like a desert. So it definitely wasn't a leaf—besides, it didn't sound like that. It sounded more like a cracking shell.

Looking at the ground around Gem's legs, Zain realized Gem wasn't standing on anything but the sandy ground.

'He is not standing on a white surface like me, so what the hell could that be?' Zain thought deeply. 'He is standing on the ground unlike me.'

'Wait a minute—a white flat surface.' Zain realized as he raised his left leg upward, horrified.

A crack could be seen right below his feet; he was standing right on top of something flat, hard, and ghost-white in color.

He is standing on the egg!

*******

**Note: A message to the crazy guys around**

1) Ghost-white—Although we have never seen a ghost, we strangely know what ghost-white looks like.