Sorry for the late update, I was sick for the last couple of days.

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The Bonnet family is a group of higher nobles’ part of the FAT—8, that are among the elite few that are part of the upper food chain that govern vast lands in the imperial state. They are distinguishable by the shiny golden eyes, as due to their Atheka’s color.

The current successor of the Bonnets is said to be a beautiful woman that rival even the top 5 ‘flowers’ of the Imperial Garden. Her distinguishing feature from the other Bonnets are her Jewel like eyes that shine brighter than any Athekainien Jewel and an X mark.

A woman with similar description is right now sitting on the ground, the red bruises noticeable on her pale skin are like a color that doesn’t and shouldn’t belong there.

To my Question she slowly opened her eyes and said in a trembling voice.

“P-Please don’t k-kill me.”

Her hands trembled as she slowly tried to grab my hand. She could use a manipulative technique for all I know. I avoided it and used a passive technique that I learned during the early days.

“Tch, I didn’t want to use this.”

I said in a soft tone as I placed my hand over her head.

“Take her away in the Sands of Time---FILIOSA.”

Light shone from the end of my palm and immediately thereafter, the Bonnet girl bent backwards and fell into a deep slumber.

I can use her as a pawn or exchange token, if I wanted to negotiate with the Bonnets that is. Anyways, she will come handy in the future, for all I care if she tries to escape, I’ll just get rid of her and find someone else…... But it would be a waste, she is a BONNET after all and those inherited dormant abilities would be lost once again.

I tie her hands and legs with some rope and other debris lying nearby. It’s not the best, but it should do the job for the time-being.

I pick her up and put her across my shoulder, so as to make it easy for me to carry her. With that out of the way, I should first look for a way or means to reach Death Valley.

I look around and find a Bomfer in one of the unaffected Hangar. I look around and take one good look towards the hangar and the girl on my shoulder alternating between them.

Just like that a bad idea is formed in my mind.

……..

20 mins go by, as I carefully tie the girl to the Bomfer and fix the saddle on it.

Bomfer is a large type of birds with the wingspan of 2 full size pull carts. It is usually used for riding and transportation by the Imperial Military towards places that are hard to reach by the MAV (Golden child of the Imperial Military).

I pet the Bomfer, as it rubs it’s head on the side of my face. I take one last look at the setup, and decide to go ahead with it.

I grab the side of the saddle and prop myself up. At the same time the bird also gets up from its sitting position all exited, starts to walk outside of the hangar.

I slowly guide it away from the crash site and towards Death Valley. I softly pull on the reigns and the gesture is understood by the bird, as it changes it’s pace from walking to running.
“Well, Bomfers are highly intelligent creatures so it’s expected.”

It slightly spreads it’s wings in a position to take off. It slowly starts flapping by pushing huge amounts of air on the ground and pumps Atheka to it’s body to make itself light. At the same time, it starts to channel Atheka around it to make a cone like transparent shape that covers the front of it’s body. It does this to make itself streamlined, so it could travel at a high speed.

And just like that we were flying and slowly accelerating at the same time. I cast one last look towards the girl tied on the back, for some reason I slightly felt bad for her.

“Well, there is no helping, she is a Bonnet after all. Being in the center of things should be in her nature.”

Out of all of the other nobles, Bonnets receive the most attention but it is an open secret that they are the most foolish among the other higher nobles.

I look down towards the buildings on the ground, which appear to have shrunk significantly in size. In the distance I spot a huge patch of Forest that seemed to have been sandwiched between two mountains. These patches of forest form the Death Valley Forest, which is known for its unforgiving and extreme environment.

Well, its fine either way as this will serve as a training session for me. The ‘me’ who will attempt the hardest Test in all of Imperial State, well I do have like 2 months to prepare for it.

As I look nervously to what lies ahead of my distorted and ruthless thing I call ‘Life’ I suddenly see a clearing towards in the forest and decided to start my search for my first comrade there, who was probably in the valley forest somewhere.

I guided the reign of the bird slowly and steadily towards the ground and with it’s wings blowing huge amounts of air, it slowly descends to the ground.

I pet the Bomfer once again before dismounting and untying the Bonnet girl. The bird goes down on it’s legs changing to a sitting position as the sky turns orange. I cut various branches of trees around us and start conceptualizing a shelter.

I also grab the giant Leaves of the special trees that grow in this forest. I merged several branches as one, repeating this process several times I secured enough for my foundation. I used most of it for the ground, but used several big and small ones as pillars on the side to create a slanting roof. I placed the giant leaves on the sticks and used some vines to secure it to the pillars of the make-shift-tent.

The make-shift-tent was covering the bird and was good enough for the Extreme Rainfall that occurs in this part of the Death Valley Forest, both for the bird and me.

“Shit! I forgot about the girl.”

I looked at the girl with blonde hair and dirty uniform all scratched and torn.

To warm the inside of the tent, I took the emergency survival backpack attached on the saddle of the Bomfer. It’s a standard issue for all Imperial Bomfer Scouting Groups to have it attached to their saddle. Just to use it in case of emergencies.

I found the Reactive Solar Atheian Lights in the kit. I turn the lights on by using the dial to increase the light’s intensity. Slowly but steadily the temperature in the tent increases, warming the surroundings.

…..

Around 20 min pass by, as I warm my hands up against the heating lights.

“Hmmm…”

I get a response form the Bonnet girl who was sleeping. I look at her, gently but gracefully she wakes up rubbing her eyes not understanding the situation due to being in a daze.

Well, it’s expected, after all sands of time does have an after effect that makes the person targeted drowsy and unaware of their surroundings.

It takes a few minutes, but eventually the Bonnet girl comes back to reality and looks around hastily as if to find something before looking straight in my direction with her eyes widened.

Well, it's time to negotiate.