NOVEL WEB Chapter 25: Finally home!
Luna was happily humming a tune beside me as the school students thinned out the closer we got to our house. I felt like asking her again about the little cut on her face, but I hesitated because, she is the equivalent of a man here, I wasn't sure if it would upset her. Or would she be okay with me asking?
If someone had shown me even a little bit of care last year in my previous world, I think my voice might have cracked. I often wonder if it's just me, or if most men default to answering "fine" when asked about their mental and physical health. Honestly, I have no idea.
"Luna," I began, my voice trailing off for a moment as I studied her face, illuminated by the soft glow of the setting sun. She turned to look at me, a smile playing on her lips. "You..." I hesitated, the question lingering unspoken on my tongue, before ultimately deciding against it. With a shake of my head, I cleared my throat. "Nevermind. But when we get home, please remind me to apply some healing cream to that wound on your face."
Luna's expression shifted to one of confusion. "Cream?" she repeated, a hint of amusement creeping into her voice. "That's manly, better leave it at that, I'll have a cool scar."
I raised an eyebrow at her. She seemed to be serious.
"Cool huh?" I stuttered and then shook my head, clicking my tongue with a sound of disapproval. "That's how it starts. First a scar, then tattoos. " I spoke dramatically. "Before one knows it, you are joining extremist groups and doing vandalism. " I sighed, as if resigning myself. "When you get caught by a rival gang, they'll know you have a brother." I shuddered falsely. "As revenge, they will catch me; they will take me away; after all, I am young and nubile; they will look at me with leering eyes while taking off my clothes; one of them will hold up a phone and say, 'This is your sister's fault' then-"
"Stop! Stop!" Luna's voice rang out, and she quickly moved her hands up to cover her ears, wincing in discomfort. When she saw my amused look, she lowered her hands and glared at me, a pout forming on her lips. "I get it, okay? But don't ever say something stupid like that again," she scolded me, folding her arms tightly across her chest.
"I'm sorry," I said, "I was just joking around."
Even though I said it was a joke, she didn't seem to hear me, and her fist remained clenched tightly at her side. "If anyone were to lay hands on you…" she began, her voice low and menacing.
I choked a little at the intensity of her gaze, and spoke a little more hastily. "I'm sorry, my bad. I won't joke about something like that again," I said, making a mental note to avoid such jokes in the future.
Luna relaxed a little, nodding. "Good." Then she brought her hand to her face and touched her wound. "I'll put on some... cream."
I snorted at her dramatics. "It's cream, you're not making out with a woman, calm your femininity." I scoffed.
Luna laughed.
(***)
Finally we arrived home, on the way there was some more idle chatter but mostly nothing much happened. After all, it wasn't a very long walk.
"Finally home!" Luna exclaimed, her voice filled with relief as she stretched her arms above her head. She grabbed her backpack and threw it onto one of the couches before quickly starting to run upstairs. "I'll be in my room!" she called out over her shoulder, already disappearing up the stairs before I could respond.
I let out a slightly amused snort and dropped my backpack in one of the corners of the house before quickly heading to the kitchen and grabbing a glass of water. I noticed that the garage was empty, so Nola had already left for work. What better time to do a little investigating in the privacy of my room.
Quickly all my thoughts turned to just one thing. Magic. Or in this case, essence.
I quickly went up to my room and locked the door. I pulled my phone out of my back pocket. Looking at the screen I debated and before looking for anything I left it on the table and went to the bathroom in my room. I quickly washed my face and again came to get the phone.
It sounded like a waste of time, but my paranoid self just wanted to make sure I was actually 100% for a quest as important as the one I was about to do right now.
So, unlocking the phone with the password, I entered the browser, and set out to learn magic quickly.
(***)
I found some pretty relevant information, including some disturbing stuff, and once again, I felt a bit overwhelmed. It turns out that there are magical beasts, yes, magical beasts and fortunately, most of them are endangered, thanks to their hunting by the colonists. I was thankful though, from what I read these things were simply very aggressive essence animals, their meat was worthless due to becoming tough and they had no magical core or anything like that. Their meat was worthless, becoming tough and inedible. They were just dangerous.
Of course, there were some awareness groups about the preservation of these animals, but fortunately, very few people supported them. Finally, some common sense! No one wanted to be hunted by a ten-meter hawk after all.
The images of some of the magical beasts were like something out of Jurassic Park.
I also discovered that there was no specific way to unlock the essence. It's something that comes naturally, like walking for children. Essentially, humans can tap into their essence from a very young age, almost instinctively.
This scared me a lot since I had tried to use essence, but it didn't work. For a moment, I thought that maybe it was because I was from another world, but I dismissed the idea since the phone had recognized an essence. It just wasn't the one stored in its data log.
For the moment, I decided to limit myself to trying to control the appliances, since according to what I read, they have an exact frequency of essence that you have to transmit for them to work.
It would be good practice while I get used to all this. Then I would move on to more complicated things like improving myself to be stronger and faster.
Oh, yes, I was excited to confirm what I knew, but my excitement turned into disappointment when I read that humans had the lowest rate of enhancement with essence, only improving their physical stats by 5%. This was nothing compared to the 10% improvement seen in semi-humans and other races.
And this is where the fact that humans were at the cutting edge of technology; Before that, they were basically treated like slaves by the other races, which is why they are the most scarce race on the entire planet, with only a little over 100 million humans worldwide. And most of them are found here, in United Humans.
Racism was a thing. That's why I hadn't encountered other races in school, as basically humans are still seen as an inferior race.
Damn it. It seemed like my road to success was an uphill climb. I feel like I'm in one of those chick flicks in my old world.
Alex Quill! The man who overcame racism and sexism to finally become rich!
Something like that.
