The next day. Morning (4 days left before arrival)

The next day started quite unexpectedly for me and at the same time recognizable

*Fshh* "WAKE UP SOLDIER" Pharynx shouts at me, pouring cold water on me "GET UP QUICKLY AND GO TO THE TRAINING"

I get up sleepily and sit down at the edge of my sleeping place, rubbing my eyes stuck together from "sleep" and look at the wet spot and understand "Places change, but the alarm clock remains the same"

But my consciousness returns the same scream

"WHY DID MAGGOT SIT DOWN, I DID NOT HEAR THE ORDER TO SIT STILL, I QUICKLY GOT UP AND LEFT" Pharynx shouts at me

I obediently obey him, out of habit I put on my glasses and quietly leave my room, heading for the hall to which I knew the way, but his scream stops me

"WHERE DID THE SNOWBALL GO" I stop in place, turn around in the direction of the voice and see how Pharynx comes up to me in a tight and looks down at me "AND NOW LISTEN TO ME CAREFULLY DOLMATIAN, FROM THIS MOMENT ON, YOU STOP THINKING AND START DOING EVERYTHING I TELL YOU" he starts poking me with his finger in chest area "I'LL TELL YOU TO RUN ALL DAY, YOU'LL RUN ALL DAY, I'LL TELL YOU TO PATCH ALL THE HOLES ON THE SHIP, YOU'LL PATCH THE HOLES ON THE SHIP, I'LL TELL YOU TO DIE, YOU'LL DIE, BUT" he took me by the clothes, raised me to the level of his height, takes my glasses and speaks more quietly "Unfortunately, I will not let you die, but I will not stop training you"

Looking into his eyes, I knew without my abilities that he hated me. Listening to his scream, I wanted to show him more and more that I was not a fake and could also fight back, but Night decided to remind me

"Stay small, I understand that it is very difficult" she encourages me in my head "But remember, you will show strength and they will not leave you alone, but we do not need this"

"I know this without your reminder, but his scream annoys me," I think and clench my fist, that there was not a big spark in my hand, but realizing that I feel angry, I take a few deep breaths and exhales, calming myself and stopping the flow of my mana, "It looks like I will have to endure another four days"

Left with such a sad thought, he finally put me back on the ground

"Since we understand each other perfectly, then we start a little run and it starts..." after making a short pause, looking at his wrist where his watch was, he shouts "...NOW"

And as if on a bugle, I run down a straight corridor wherever my eyes look, and as I realized, I am forbidden to stop without a command

Running through the corridors for several minutes, I realized that my endurance had become greater than it was before and unfortunately for me, this fact would greatly attract attention to myself and therefore, I had to simulate shortness of breath and even pretend that I was falling

"Kid, I like your idea of imitating this," Night tells me, "But be a little more restrained, you're being too dramatic."

"It's easy to say, but I've never pretended to get tired," I tell her and don't notice how I'm bumping into some person.

We fall to the floor together so that I was lying on top, but surprisingly, I fell on something soft

Looking ahead, I notice a Yon familiar to me, moaning in pain with her eyes closed

Finally, she opens her eyes and begins to apologize "Oh, forgive me, I didn't notice you and I was heading to my..." here her gaze meets mine and quietly finishes "... to a friend"

She was very stunned looking at me and by her looks she seems to have forgotten how to blink and breathe. I was about to get up from her, but she stops me and innocently asks "What are the fates?"

But before I could explain something to her, I suddenly got a strong kick on my ass, so hard that I flew into the air and was already lying face down on the cold floor

"I DIDN'T ALLOW YOU TO REST" Pharynx shouts at me standing next to me "AND NOW GET UP AND KEEP RUNNING"

From screaming, Yon realizes where she is now and getting up begins to command "I say STAND,- she screams and I stay in place, wiping the sore spot"

From such an outburst, Pharynx's eye twitched and slowly approached Yon

"What. Did you say that?" Almost growling , he tells her

But Yon did not lose her self–confidence and firmly repeated what she said "I said, stand still"

Pharynx was burning with rage, so give him the go-ahead and he'll smear her down the hallway. It even seemed to me that something cracked here.

"Don't get into other people's duties li'l maggot" he says and tried to keep himself under control "I'm doing a direct order from our mother and be kind, GET OUT OF HERE" he finished the phrase with a shout

But Yon did not even flinch in front of him and as soon as she opened her mouth, there was a loud bang against the wall that made Pharynx angry, from which Yon did not utter a word

Pharynx slowly brought his face to her ear and quietly tells her "How many times do I tell you not to get involved in adult affairs. Don't get me wrong, you're NOTHING to me, and he" he points at me "is a thing that needs to be thoroughly sanded and polished. I do not know why, but our mother takes great care of him, although I do not like it, but I am obliged to train him" he pulls away from her ear and speaks in a normal voice "But as they say, a happy parent is a happy whole family and therefore DISAPPEAR" he shouts the last phrase

After listening to the last phrase, I was surprised for a second, "But he can be calm"
But the calm did not last long, when he finished with her, he immediately switched to me and began to shout in the usual way "WHAT ARE WE STANDING FOR? ARE WE WAITING FOR A PERSONAL INVITATION? HE QUICKLY TOOK HIS FEET IN HIS HANDS AND RAN"

Again at his command, I continued running down the corridor at my own pace

My further running could not be calm, running past other people, as if by collusion they always tripped me up or prevented me from running in front, of other methods

At some point, everything changed a lot. Continuing to run in front of the monotonous corridors, I felt that a door should open in front of me now and, as my instincts say, it opens deliberately to stop me, but remembering that I should not stand out in any way, I have to play along with this situation and I crash into it with my head

Falling to the floor from the pain in my head, not a large number of people began to gather around me and mocked me in every possible way, but I ignored them

As soon as the headache started to go away, I decide to get on my feet, but my instincts make themselves felt and a kick flies in my direction to the abdominal area, realizing this, I accept that it will hurt further

There is a blow and I was seized with severe pain again, tears began to appear on my face, no matter how hard I tried to hold them back, I could no longer, unfortunately they did not stop there and new portions of kicks fell on me

Through pain and tears, I looked at my abusers, which for a second made me see dark silhouettes from that very vision in the forest, only in the first person, and together with these visions a deaf voice spoke again "EnDuRe. PaIn."

Following this voice, Night "Feel, be patient, become stronger than this pain, I know that you are above it" she encouraged me

"I'm in pain," I tell her/them, "It's getting really hard."

For a second, the blows on me stopped and I sat down, they started chatting about something, and I continued to look at them. Through the pain, I heard something about a ghost and one of them started to accelerate for a strong blow

I closed my eyes and was ready for it, but the blow did not follow, opening my eyes I noticed a man standing in front of me with his arms outstretched. My hearing began to return and I was able to identify Thoraxa in his voice.

"Stop it quickly" he stops to them "Isn't he one of our brothers" says Thorax

"We didn't ask you," says one

"This “White Ghost” shouldn't be here," says the second

"Don't you understand anything? While he was gone, we lived normally, but when he appeared" the third one points at me with his finger "We stopped sleeping at night, we have nightmares"

"Who allowed you to decide who can be here and who can't?" Thorax was indignant

"We decided that" the first one spoke "We have already filed a complaint against him, and the issue of his death is a matter of time" and all three of them laughed wildly

"No, I won't let you do that" Thorax continued to stand his ground, but I felt that he was afraid

"Then you'll get it too," and the second one swung to strike

Thorax cowered and closed his eyes for the blow, but the only thing he heard was a light slap and screams of pain

When he opened his eyes, he noticed his brother Pharynx in front of him, who protected him from the blow

"I didn't understand, is this a riot" said Pharynx gritting his teeth "Who allowed you to hit your own people?"

All three of them froze in place and did not know what to do and as my emotions told me, they were afraid

"N-n-no, w-we wouldn't dare" they stuttered "We just uh-uh"

Pharynx clamped the hand of the attacking man, from which he fell to his knees and began to whine in pain "As I understand it, you have no special reasons and therefore, I will personally arrange punishment for you, the three of you Heesk, Sik and Deats"

We watched Pharynx chastise these three until Thorax decided to speak up "Brother, I..." but before he could finish, Pharynx shuts him up

"And you" turns to Thorax "Quickly take him to our farm and treat him"

"But I..." Thorax stuttered in front of his brother

"I said, TAKE HIM" Pharynx shouted at his brother

Thorax didn't want to anger him any more and just nodded slightly in response, took me by one hand and carried me in the direction of the farm

We walked quietly and silently to the appointed point, but suddenly the silence was interrupted by a voice I knew "Oh, by what fates, oh, our most holy mother, what happened?" Yut spoke up

"How can I say" Thorax began to speak "Our friend got into a little skirmish"

"I'm not in a hurry, so tell me what happened," Yut says and helps Thorax carry me by taking my other hand

While we were walking to the local farm, Thorax told us in detail what he had seen, and Yut obediently listened to everything

After listening to the whole story, Yut was seriously disappointed for his brothers and it was evident in his eyes "When we get to the farm, we have something to talk about"

Thorax nodded confidently and we continued walking in silence.

It took a couple of minutes to get there

Over time, while we were walking, the pain in my body began to pass a little, so that soon I was able to walk to my destination on my own

Thorax was surprised by my speedy recovery and was very worried about me, but Yut was able to calm him down a little, saying like "He has his own surprises" but Thorax did not stop looking at me

When we finally reached the place, I fell tired on the floor, leaning on something hard and looking at an empty point, as if trying to find meaning there

Yut looked around and carefully checked the room for other living persons. After making sure that only we were there, he came up to us, sat down on a small box and looked at us seriously

"I don't think I need to remind you why we're here?" having drawn attention to ourselves, we nodded synchronously as confirmation "Then let's summarize what will happen in the future. Exactly 4 days later at night, a second test of strength should take place and the main star of this event is our client" he points at me and I nod in response "Our whole family should come to this event and therefore, I believe that there is no best moment to escape and so, what are the next steps?"

We looked at each other in silence, from which Yut sighs heavily and continues to say "Okay, then let's define the main issues of escape" he raises his hand and consistently arches his finger with each question "The first thing that holds our friend back from “freedom”. Second, a distraction, although everyone should be in the arena, but I do not exclude the patrolmen. Thirdly, transportation, we must arrange at least some kind of escape vessel. As you can see, you need to plan three points, what are your ideas?"

I have a couple of questions in my head, but again I face the problem of passing them on to others. And again, as if by magic, barking is voiced next to us

"Woof" Scales barked next to Yut, causing him to jump sharply from his place and fall to the floor

"Our Most Holy mother, what are you?" he shouts at her in panic, but she does not notice him "Stop appearing wherever and whenever you want, we are talking about serous topics here"

Scales ignores Yut, comes up to me, gives me my diary for questions and sits on my lap

Thorax was surprised by such a person as Scales and looked at me puzzled

I am writing him a note "Meet Scales, my friend and assistant" after giving him the note, he read it and the only thing he asked was to stroke it, and I did not refuse him

Yut clapped his hands to get our attention and said, "I'm sorry to distract you, but we're having a serious conversation here."

Thorax hesitantly steps back to his seat and raises his hand, from which he receives all our attention and lowers it, realizing that it was not necessary to do this

"Well, I have suggestions, but it's very risky, but it can help us a lot" Thorax lowers his eyes

"We are fully listening to you" says Yut "Any idea will be useful to us"

Thorax slowly gets up from his seat and walks over to one of the incubators, leans his hand and looks at us very sadly

Yut's eyes widen and abruptly begins to speak "No, no, not that, anything but that. You remember what happened last time, so it's a very risky and stupid thing to do."

"I understand you, but as for me, I don't see any other way out" reminds Thorax

Yut abruptly approaches Thorax dense and speaks directly into his eyes "DO YOU remember what happened last time? We were lucky that we didn't get killed later!"

I was wondering what really happened and that's why I'm writing them a question "Can you tell me exactly what happened?" and I'm giving this note to Scales so she can give it to him.

After receiving my note, he looked seriously in my direction, but after hearing an innocent whine from below and looking at Scales, he does not soften much. Falling to the floor from fatigue, Scales jumps up to him and he gently began to stroke her, pulling on a slight smile

"Actually, not much happened, but if you're really interested, then listen" gathering his thoughts, he continued "It happened about six years ago, we were the same age as you, my sister and I were very bored on this ship and we wanted adventures"

Looking at his hand, he smiled and continued "In those days, we did have a large library with long and fascinating stories, and imagine, then Thorax led it" Thorax was much embarrassed and sad for a second "I do not know why, but our people did not like to read and spent more time for training, but my sister and I liked to read and listen to the stories of Thoraxa that he heard somewhere, later on, he began to tell us theories and his guesses"

After looking at Thoraxa, who was trying to hold back his tears, he continued "Then, he told us his theory that it is possible to extract “love” in other ways, without using these capsules" by pointing at them "We were intoxicated by this idea and wanted to help our fellow humans with the extraction of this essence. Then it didn't occur to us how to release all these poor devils from the capsules in order to get “love” in another way, and then complete chaos occurred"

Thorax could not stand it and began to roar, but Yut did not stop it and he continued "All these test subjects woke up from their sleep and began to arrange a pogrom, they broke and beat everything they saw. My sister and I were shocked by such a sight and immediately ran to help, but one of them caught me and holding me tightly, I stayed in place like a brother and instructed my sister to run for help, while i tried to restrain all this rabble that began to rebel"

After catching his breath a little, he continued "Fortunately, help came very quickly and all the reinforcements that came, it..." Yut began to breathe intermittently, but thanks to Scales, he quickly calmed down and continued "All the reinforcements that came, they killed everyone who came out of the capsules and fortunately, we did not release everyone, but look at This picture was terrible"

After talking about the murders, I got goosebumps and images of the murders that I had committed immediately surfaced in my memories, which made me start to shake. But then the Night came in my head and she began to calm my nerves with her charms, which made me feel better, which I was glad for and said "Thank you very much" to her. I continued to listen.

"When the question arose who did it, we wanted to get out in the act, but unexpectedly for us, Thorax came out for us and admitted that he did it, we were shocked that he took the blame and we did a stupid thing, we also admitted that we did it. Subsequently, an investigation began to follow, the question of which was “What told us to do this?”. As a result, they began to accuse not us, but the books in the library, and as you can already understand, after all this, they decided to destroy the library, and all some historical books were burned without question. In addition, a new rule has been added, a person who dares to let people out of the farm again will be sentenced to death immediately"

He stopped his story so as not to catch his breath a lot, after which he continued "You might think that after the destruction of the library everything would return to its usual course, but no, all our brothers began to look at us as traitors and no longer wanted to deal with us" he finished

Silence hung between us, but suddenly, Thorax decides to break the silence "This essence of love is a very terrible thing, as I have already told you before, that it dulls our feelings and is addictive, but it also strongly affects people on the farm, after a long time pumping out love from them, as a result of which, they stop that then feel good, only aggression remains. All these people in the incubator will never be able to be the same again, and it's terrible for me to look at them every day and realize that I can't help them in any way"

"It's not your fault" Yut encourages him "We were just unlucky"

"But this time I have a plan to let people out with impunity. Do you know that our mother rarely and slowly checks the papers?" he asks

"Who doesn't know? All our brothers know that she is very lazy in terms of documents" Yut perked up

"This is exactly where we will play" says Thorax "On the morning of the fourth day, I will write a statement that some incubators have started to fail and they need repair. If we're lucky, she won't check it out, then we can sabotage and distract ourselves."

Yut looked at him seriously and considered the moment, but after a while, he sighs heavily and agrees "Okay, maybe your idea can work. Then we have two more points left."

Looking at how they want to help me, that they are willing to take risks and go to extremes, I wanted to tell them the secret about myself and magic. But from the beginning, I consult with Night

"Night, do you think I can tell them that I can do magic too? It can help a lot for the plan."

"Do you really want to trust them?" She asks me

"Can't you see how much they're risking for me? Have you heard their story? Even after all this, they decide to go through it again and you seriously think that they will betray me."

After some of my questions, Night is not silent much, but still agrees with me "Little one, if you seriously understand that you can trust them, then take responsibility and tell them. Just let them know that you're only going to do magic on the big day, okay?"

"I get you," I reply to her and write a new note "In fact, I have a big secret" and I give it to them

After reading my message, they look at me questioning and Yut asks a question "And what can you tell us?"

The next second, I take the note from them and burn it with blue flames right in front of their eyes.

They look at me in surprise and Yut was already taking in air to scream, but I quickly close his mouth and point with my index finger that he needs to be quieter

Calming down a little, he removes his hand from himself and asks "Why didn't you tell us earlier?"

I look at him sadly and write to him "I had reasons not to tell anyone, but looking at you, I decided to tell you. But please don't tell anyone, it's a secret" I give them the note and write the second one "I can open the door myself and get out, so concentrate on other issues" and give the second note

After reading it, Yut nods approvingly and says "This will make the task much easier. Then Silent takes over the first task, Thorax takes over the second, and I'll take the third and try to find you a transport"

Having established themselves, each with his own task, but a question appears in my head and I write it "Why don't you want to escape?"

After reading it, Yut puts his hand on my shoulder and gently says "We would love to do this, but we can't, there is a reason for this, but don't worry, in the future we will meet again and we will remember this moment with a smile" and he smiled at me

After talking about the future, we were about to leave this farm and the first one who went was Yut

"Okay, since we've already settled the issues, then let's get out of here, because there's such an atmosphere here" he's already headed for the wall, but suddenly he hits something hard and he falls to the floor "Damn, what was that?" he wonders, rubbing his forehead

Following this question, his answer comes out of the wall and it was Yon, who was also rubbing her forehead

"What the hell was that?" She asks and notices her brother on the ground, with a smile she asks him a question "Oh? Why are you lying down? Come on, get up" and she holds out her hand to him

Yut sighs languidly, but smiling accepts her hand and quickly stands up. But before he can fully stand up, something quickly knocks these two out of the way and they fall to the floor

"WHERE IS HE" bursts into the Chrysalis room and quickly looks around in search of something, but when her gaze stops on me, she smiles broadly and quickly hugs me "My Blessed Mother, you're okay, they told me that you were beaten, and I was so worried about you, but don't worry, those abusers got what they deserved and no one bothers you anymore," she says, stroking my head.

Such care made me feel awkward and at some point I wanted to collapse on the spot from such attention "It looks like I'm not a fan of being the center of attention" I think

"Since we have already dealt with this problem, then let's go from here" Chrysalis says smiling "And for you Silent" attracts my attention "We will now return to my office and I will arrange a personal lesson for you"

And with that, she started guiding me out of this room so that I wouldn't stay here any longer. As I left, I nodded goodbye to Yut, Yon who were still sitting on the ground and Thorax

Then we walked to her office in silence, but along the way she was singing some song that I didn't know and smiling

After a couple of minutes, we finally reached her office, and when I entered it, I saw such a picture. Her entire office was in disarray, as if it had been turned upside down "Even in the orphanage there was at least some order," I notice, her entire floor and table were filled with papers, and books lay on the shelves at random, but what surprised me greatly was the strong aroma of something that I didn't understand, the last time I was here, he wasn't there and now it was very difficult to be here

"Little one, I can smell rotten magic here" Night spoke up "You don't have to worry too much, but try to breathe less restrained"

"And I thought magic didn't have expiration dates," I ask her.

"Daydreaming, nothing is immortal, but except for me" she brags "Any magic should be stored at least in some kind of vessel, starting from us and ending with amulets, but if there is no carrier around magic, it will begin to lose its freshness and will decompose, if such magic absorbs a living carrier, then this magic it will poison the carrier from inside" it stops for a couple of seconds and continues "And yet, this method is not a bad way to torture the weak"

"The last part, I didn't have to say," I reproach her

"If you're such a sissy, then try to stay away from that pipe on the ceiling" I look up and notice her "If I'm not mistaken, then this is the epicenter of rot"

When she finished speaking, Chrysalis caught her attention.

"Don't be shy and sit down at an empty seat," she says, but noticing that she can't find an empty chair, she leaves for a while and returns with a chair "Here sit down here"

Chrysalis sat down on an empty chair and sat opposite me and smiled at me

"You're probably wondering what we're going to do, the answer is simple" she takes a book out of her desk and puts it on the table with a loud clap "We're going to learn sign language"

I was surprised by such a lesson and was even glad about it, because it will help a lot in the future. Even Night couldn't help with that, as it turns out hooves and hands are two different things

"As I can see from your expression, you're happy about it, and that's good. Today we will start with the basics, namely the alphabet"

We spent the next hours learning the dumb alphabet and fortunately it wasn't difficult

When we finished, it was already a couple for me to go back to my room, but they didn't want to let me go alone, so they assigned me a personal guard and a guide, it was Ron

When I reached my room, I continued my training to improve my body and it seemed to me that muscle reliefs began to appear on my body, not much, but they were

The night was the same as the previous one. I offered Night to stop making nightmares, but she was in no way and didn't even see anything wrong with me being beaten, saying things like "What doesn't kill us makes us stronger." That's how my day ended.

To be continued…….

Author's Note

So, our hero found out the reason for his friends' detachment from their fellows and seeing how they were trying to help him, he decided to show them his magic and in the end, the plan should work, right?

The next chapter will be devoted to the remaining days, until day X. Honestly, I'm running out of fantasy about what might be happening to our hero these days (All the juices will be squeezed out)
Do not forget to look at the general album by characters, it will be replenished, but very slowly (At the moment, I have drawn Scales, Yut, Yon and Tempest)

Also, I plan to add my FF to the right groups for promotion, but at the moment, I think that it may not be up to understanding the quality of the plot and in general what is happening. Therefore, I think I will add at the time of arrival Manhattan

What else can I say? Wait, further – more