ACT II
MONAMI

CHAPTER 56
A DUBIOUS FRIEND

  All three were in their own thoughts, Hans was occupied with how the next thing to the brownie would taste, Chris was thinking of ways to make a good impression on Rudolf and Delimira was more focused on extracting Samson's secret from Hans.

She saw Hans had finished munching on, so she asked him,
What was your punishment?

Hans wanted to say, what does it matter to her but seeing the empty plate on the table he was compelled to answer her politely, just as she wanted.
He sent me to Agrilands.

Then those researchers must have had a field day.

  Hans looked at her strangely, he thought she knew what happened to him but unlike his thoughts, Delimira was talking from experience. Hans told them about his not-so-called adventure and how he was treated as a test subject there. The mood became light and the awkwardness started to disappear.

  Chris was blabbering about his training schedule and it was clear that he was going to drag Hans with him. Delimira also expressed her willingness to follow them, Chris didn't want her near him for the time being but lacked the guts to refute and Hans lacked the reason after her proposal to make this shop their usual hanging spot.

  Going along with her means free food and a good ambience. Hans was weighing his options but as usual, his stomach won over his rational thinking. But he was not clueless about what was happening, he wanted to know her real intentions so he asked her politely,

Can you please tell me, what is that you really want, Ms Winters?

  Hearing him formally asking her sounded somewhat awkward for both of them but Delimira knew, it was the breaking point, her answer could make or break their relationship going further, so she replied sincerely.

She looked at Chris and said,

I..I lack friends, I just don’t want to lose the only one I have, and since he is stubborn to be close to you. I just need to do the same.

Hans rolled his eyes and said,
So in short, you want to be my friend, right?

  When Hans put her words like this, it sounded embarrassing to her so she just nodded in accord. And for Hans, It was not wise to reject friendship from a person who could buy an establishment on a whim but he wanted to know how far she could go for this.

He asked her,
Then How about we make a deal Ms Winters? Teach me the High Elven (the old language of elves).

Delimira answered him without hesitating a bit,
fine

Chris shouted at her,
Hey, hey, the other high elves won't just scold you for that.

Delimira responded with the same expression as previously,
Like I care.

She turned to Hans and asked,
I am up for it so, do we have a deal?

  Hans did not have any need to learn High Elven, he simply wanted Delimira to reject his proposal but she was also aware of what Hans was aiming for, so she happily accepted that and betrayed his anticipation. Since he proposed the deal he had no choice but to accept. He regretted not asking for the things he really valued, not some elven nonsense but the ship was already sailed.

Hans sighed and accepted her so-called friendship. Delimira threw another question at him,
You are still carrying the book and what's with the outfit?

Tread carefully Ms Winters, my sister bought this for me.

Okay, then what's with the book, it looks different.

  He knew as he was carrying the book, someone would ask the question and he was going to establish the fact that he carried different books with him. This will allow him to hide 'Limitless' in plain sight, it was the best solution he came up with. He unbuckled the book and showed them while opening it.

It was totally blank and Hans gave the excuse,
It's for writing my findings in AgriLands, assistants are made to write many things.

  The book felt too big for taking notes and too expensive for Hans to have and it was clearly creating suspicions. After the incident with Walter, Hans already had switched the Limitless with a similar-sized book, of course with expensive hard leather too. Since Delimira knew of his lineage she decided to poke the matter more.

It looks expensive. Do you wanna sell it? How about I give you 1000 gold?

  Hans picked up the book and looked at her, weighing his options, initially the value of the book was two gold coins but if he sell it to her, then what would he do if she wanted to buy every book he carried? The plan of hiding 'Limitless' in plain sight was gonna crash at this rate. So he hastily replied,

It's not for sale.

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Delimira showed a smug smile and replied to anxious Hans,
So it's that precious to you or I am not offering a good price?

  Hans was glad that he brought the fake one instead. He suddenly felt cold by looking at her expression, she would have found out in no time about the value of Limitless in just one sentence. As he thought, getting close to her was not really a wise choice, so he decided to put a guard around her.

Hans gave her the book and said,
I am only selling you once, but no backsies.

It means you have more valuable books too, what about the previous one, is it for sale too?

  Hans was now seriously weighing, whether he should listen to his stomach or not, Delimira was really dangerous and quick-witted in finding things. He took back his book and she kept showing a smug face like she was onto something.

  With the announcement of the Glory Wars, Junior League, the first years were motivated to the point where not a single one was slacking off. Getting to win the event was a shortcut to a good life even for their descendants.

  Of course, Hans was different from them, with his obnoxious punishment he was skipping several classes and was doing things even after his allotted work time in Agrilands. He made regular visits to the Griffin’s Nest Cafe where he caught up with Delimira and Chris. He could learn things from Chris but having delicious free food was one of his ways to get rid of the mental fatigue he built up from working in the Botanical Garden.

  Hans followed the same routine in continuation for a while, working overtime and successfully completing the work of six months in six weeks. Now there was no one who could disturb him there. With the newly acquired excuse and free time, he wanted to experiment with his new findings.

  There was a place in Agrilands which was called the ManEating forest. A place where plant life dominated everything and as soon as Hans knew of it, he wanted to explore that region. Walter had arranged for him to get into the region without any problem.
  The security was lax since there was nothing worthy to explore and that also was the reason for the diminished interests of researchers. But for Hans it was a place of wonders, it only recorded to have the herbivores of class one and the predator here were some of the plant species. Hans did not understand why this place was called ManEating forest.

  These predator plants were immobile but were efficient in setting traps and like this, the ecosystem continued in this small place. Unfortunately for those predators, Hans did not follow their commonsense, since he was sensitive around the wood mana they used. It was easy for him to tell what was a trap and what was not. He wanted to see with his own eyes how these predator plants hunt so when he found one he went for a high tree and patiently waited to see mother nature at work.

  It didn't take long for a naive Antler beast to come for the bait, that the predator plant had prepared. Class one lacked intelligence so it was pretty easy to fool them by baiting.

  Sniffing around here and there the Antler took a step into the trap and in a flash, it got impaled by bamboo spears from the ground and lost its life.

  Hans was eagerly waiting to see how this plant was going to eat it and his wish was granted as the impaling bamboo spears got retracted to the ground and the corpse was absorbed in the place like sinking in the green quagmire.

  Hans noted that quickly and tested the quagmire by throwing a rock but the place became solid and hard in mere moments. Seeing the predator plant called SharpDeath, he was happier than the munching plant itself. Hans wanted to examine every bit of it because there were no seeds available to raise them.

  Hans activated his orca vines and uprooted the SharpDeath, it struggled a bit but without the contact of soil, it died pretty quickly. He was not able to learn its inner working after its death so he went on searching for another SharpDeath.

  After finding another one, he restrained every bit of it and started scanning the predator plant with the touch he was taught by treants. As soon as he touched the plant, the thing became servile like it was ready to dance according to Hans’s will. It took nothing but two days for Hans to recreate this SharpDeath trap but the regular one was not satisfactory for him so he merged it with OrganicIron and turned the speared bamboo into metallic spears.

  Hans did not change its name and recorded it as a self-created spell, SharpDeath. His modified SharpDeath trap was stronger and deadlier than the regular one and was controlled by his will. With the mind of mastering more predator plants, Hans went on his way of deep exploration of the ManEating Forest.

INSIDE THE LECTURE HALL

He is still not coming today, I think prof Martha won't tolerate his absence much more.

Chris replied to Delimira,
Since when were you this concerned?

Shut up Chris,

Chris replied,
Relax, his houseMaster got his back, he won't leave him hanging dry.

He was exempted for four hours a day, not for six weeks straight.

Chris smiled and said,
So you were counting days too.

Delimira looked at him annoyingly and said in a serious tone,
Shut up, since when did you grow a pair to think of teasing me?

They were just idly chatting, more clearly Delimira bashing him but suddenly Professor Martha pointed them,
Ms Winters make sure that your friend, Hans shows up for the next lecture, I think it's time we have a little chat.

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