The start of our journey, well, that's what I honestly think about it. I'm pretty sure, in her mind, this is just an ordinary walk in the park.

The secret passage seems to be north-west from the cabins. So first, we travelled north through the plains a bit since it's easier for the horse to travel.

Then we turned a little bit towards the west and entered the forest.

Normally, forests would have many kinds of critters living in them. And since this was a fantasy land, my mind is riddled with the thoughts of monsters roaming around.

However, this forest truly is lacking the aforementioned creatures, as Lillia has said.

Sometimes we'll see squirells or birds, but since the trees are massive, they don't come down very often.

After quite awhile, I asked her something.

"Hey, what does it feel like living alone?" (Kazu)

"You're asking that now?" (Lillia)

"Yeah, since we got nothing else to do while riding this horse." (Kazu)

"Hmmm, I guess at first it was lonely. But I got used to it." (Lillia)

I didn't know how to respond to that without saying something unnecessarily awkward, so I just kept quiet for some time.

Doing nothing really puts you through a state of observating the stuff around you, and that's what's happening to me right now.

I looked around more and more. After around 20 minutes of us riding a horse while observing the view, she said something.

"Do you have any kind of dreams?" (Lillia)

"Huh?" (Kazu)

"Any dreams you have?" (Lillia)

"Hmmm, that's a hard question." (Kazu)

"It's okay to not answer. But let me tell you mine." (Lillia)

"Okay?" (Kazu)

Was it too awkward of a silence for her?

"My dream is.... to make my own kingdom." (Lillia)

"Is that really possible? I think that's pretty unrealistic.", is what I was going to say, but she will probably get mad at me.

"You see, after the great war around 2000 years ago, demons have always been discriminated." (Lillia)

Great war? I've never heard anything about that.

"Not only that, some races have racist tensions between one another, so discrimination on other races exist as well." (Lillia)

"And because of that, I've always wanted a place where demons and other races could get along." (Lillia)

"I want my kingdom to be built on this place." (Lillia)

"Hmmm, isn't that pretty much impossible for just one person to- Ah! Sorry!" (Kazu)

Uh-oh, it slipped out of my mouth. Brace for impact!

"It's not impossible. I have prove." (Lillia)

"Huh?" (Kazu)

I was covering with my hands, but she didn't do anything at me. She even has a proud voice while saying that line.

"It's you. You're my first citizen and my first servant." (Lillia)

"Oh, me? Your first citizen? I feel a bit flattered." (Kazu)

"WAIT!?! YOUR SERVANT??????" (Kazu)

"Oh, did I not mention?" (Lillia)

"You told me nothing about it!" (Kazu)

"Well, I guess now you know." (Lillia)

"I didn't agree to this!!" (Kazu)

"Want me to kick you out? Or be my servant?" (Lillia)

"...?!" (Kazu)

Fuck, this bitch is manipulative! Just like everyone I've encountered here in this place!

I miss being a normal human living in a normal life!!

And here I thought I'd finally be having a quiet, peaceful, and slow life.

As I have an imaginative mental breakdown, Lillia said that we're headed to a cave nearby.

____________________________________________

We've now reached the cave entrance.

Probably half an hour has passed since we left the cabins.

The size of the entrance seems to be enough to fit around 3 horses, plus ours.

Seems quite big to be honest. I don't see why this is such a secretive place. 

Maybe the entrance from the other side is hidden well?

But how could she find a well hidden cave entrance to a secret plateu when she was young?

More unanswered questions popped up, but I decided to just ignore them. I should not stress myself over such trivial matters.

Anyway, what should've been a dark cave, soon, turned out to be a light festival.

On the outside, this cave looked dark enough that you'd need a torch.

And that's what it was when we first entered. So I was perplexed as to why she didn't light up a torch or something.

But as we gradually get deeper, these small worms one by one, can be seen more and more on the cave ceiling.

At first, they seem to be glowing a bit. So I thought to myself, 'This must be why she didn't light up a torch'.

And I was right. As we went deeper I realized they were special.

What makes them so special is that they seem to produce light. Not just one colour, they have varying colours for each one.

I was struck in awe when I saw them, but then....

"What the....?" (Kazu)

In just a few seconds we entered this seemingly dome shaped part of the cave.

And inside lies, thousands, no, probably millions of these worms.

And they don't just have one color of light, a portion of them have more than one.

And some of them can move their lights.

It's like I'm below a myriad of dancing colours.

"Beautiful right?" (Lillia)

When I looked at her, she was looking back at me.

As I'm seeing her face, the colourful and warm lights showered us.

I'm again reminded of how beautiful she looks, actually, the colourful lights made her look even more beautiful somehow.

"Y-yeah, beautiful." (Kazu)

~To be continued....