Chapter 148 - Rescue

But, even though she had just understood this, Lefiya decided to not 'compare' the two anymore while Ethan, to the vision of the two 'embraced' in a tender way and both in those pajamas, could only giggle as Lefiya, hearing him doing so, came out of her thoughts and, noticing that Ethan was much closer than she previously thought, Lefiya could only blush as she weakly said

"S-Stop.."

Her words and her embarrassment led Ethan to move his eyes to look at the ceiling while, after he had finished laughing, a smile formed almost unintentionally on his face...

"Even if I stop, I've already saved this scene in my mind, it's impossible to remove it"

He didn't want to embarrass her if not necessary, that was certainly true, but another true thing was that Ethan wouldn't agree to avoid teasing her a little, since it was so natural that he knew it would not be easy to keep a promise like that...

As Ethan pondered about this for a second, Lefiya looked at him before finally asking Ais why she 'embraced' her.

But at this question, Ais replied

"You..were too far...so I brought you back here"

Wincing to her words, Ethan did not say anything while Lefiya, knowing that she had no chance to move away if Ais didn't want it, she decided to follow her choice although the proximity with Ethan made her feel a little more anxiety than before.

While Ais and Lefiya were talking with each other, Ethan could almost feel his eyes closing on his own. It had been a hard day, and they had also stayed up much longer than expected, so Ethan's mind was already wandering through dreams, but he still didn't decide to use meditation rather than sleep. From tomorrow in fact, he expected a hard training and more research on how to enter his domain, which now seemed very difficult since he had no way to unlock it...

As these thoughts 'caught' him, Ethan slowly closed his eyes without even realizing it while Lefiya answered

"I don't think that's the p-problem..."

Shifting her focus on Ethan as she was waiting for a confirmation from him, Lefiya was surprised to see that Ethan had his eyes closed, his breath was steady, and even though he didn't have a real pajama, Lefiya could only be admired by the cuteness of the latter..

After a few seconds that Ais no longer heard Lefiya speak, she had understood that 'something was wrong' and seeing that Lefiya was staring behind her, she turned as well just to see she was looking at the now sleeping Ethan.

While Ais made the gesture of a 'Shhh' to make her understand that now they had to speak with a lower tone of voice Lefiya nodded and, although she periodically glanced at Ethan, she decided to follow Ais' advice since she didn't want to wake him unnecessarily...

'But...I really never expected to find myself like this... in a bed with Ais and Ethan while Ais embraces me, it's like a dream come true...'

She remembered perfectly what thoughts she had previously, and many of them were related to Ethan and Ais. Only now with a rudimentary knowledge of her feelings Lefiya could realize how foolishly she had behaved in this small period, although every action she had taken before was made precisely to try to fight her insecurity, so she didn't want to deny that those doubts of hers were needed to have more security now...

'And then if he couldn't take so little, I wouldn't have fallen in love in the first place..'

Unwittingly thinking this, Lefiya flinched in reaction to her own thoughts before she blushed again as Ethan's peacefully sleeping face was in the centre of her sight...

While Ais knew it was time to sleep for her and Lefiya was voluntarily lost in her thoughts, Maple was resting her head on the bed as to try to feel the softness of the latter. This is because in Inari, the quality of it was light years apart from the world were they currently were, making that simple bed a pure paradise for her, so much so that she immediately fell asleep..

---

Now back in the world of dreams, Maple was no longer in Ethan's room.

Instead, she was in the place where the accident had happened a short time before, the Inari's Evaluation Building.

Opened her eyes, Maple had confused memories, and she remembered nothing before she could hear a voice beside her saying

"I'll come to pick you up after the evaluation..."

Turning to look at the woman, Maple immediately recognized her hair, her tail, her ears and those eyes of a yellow so bright that they almost looked like two little suns.

"Mama!"

Having recognized her mother and her own words, Maple remembered where she was, who she was, what she had to do in the place where they were and why.

Now clear that she had to perform the evaluation, Maple nodded at her previous words as she added

"I..I'll see you later, mama.."

Smiling while saying these words, Maple saw the latter disappear from her sight and even though it made her very suspicious, Maple knew how good her mama was at the arts.

So, she now decided to focus on the situation in front of her as once she met Crimson and explained the reason for her "visit", the events followed one another quickly and unchanged as they really happened, but after reaching the crucial point, just where the earthquake was about to begin, Maple, who was so surprised to see an art in front of her, remembered seeing much more exceptional things even from young people like her. Even if she didn't know exactly his age in fact, Maple was able to understand all too well that Ethan wasn't yet an a.d.u.l.t...

'But how do I know such a person...?'

She remembered very well the people she had seen as 'foreigners', but she remembered nothing of Ethan except he was a foreigner and that he possessed a rather unique kind of magic. But these thoughts could not last long as the earthquake manifested itself and, just as it happened in reality, Maple was repeatedly helped in the attempt to escape, until the instructor arrived at the decision on whom to entrust the shield, but this time the latter wasn't assigned to Maple.

With the pieces of ceiling falling one after the other, Maple was again frightened, and desperate as she called for her mother, but it was all for nothing since, after the first pieces had hit the first foxes, Maple had lost even more spirit to fight, and it was just as the instructor tried to help her and Maple had once again surrendered to her destiny that a piece of ceiling was about to fall on her.

But, just at the last moment before the latter could fall upon her, the latter was shattered into so many pieces that the first huge boulder, now were just small pieces that dispersed before the power subjected to it

Seeing this level of power before her, the first desperate eyes of Maple regained their most natural colour as she wondered in her mind who might be so powerful as to chop up a boulder of that size..

But while Maple wondered who she might be, the person in question answered.

"You really think my sword could only be directed to that ridiculous boulder?"

Being able to hear these words spoken in a gentle yet sarcastic way, Maple turned curious to know who could have saved her, but before she could turn completely, she saw a slash forming quickly in all the surrounding space, before the whole dream was completely shattered.

But before she could say something, memories of what really happened flooded in her mind as she understood this was a dream but, having seen this time that some foxes had died, whereas before she hadn't been able to see them, Maple felt enormously scared as she weakly asked the woman

"Don't tell me..they died...in the real world too?"

"I have no idea, all I know is that I found myself here with a task to save you. So I did it"

Although she now felt very concerned about this situation, Maple knew it was not really the time to think about it, so she decided to try to communicate her intentions to Ethan when she woke up..

Looking up again, Maple finally focused on the appearance of the person in front of her, but what she saw left her shocked.

Although it was all dark, Maple was able to distinguish her features and her appearance, and being able to see her hair was of an intense white, followed by red eyes similar to the colour of her own fur, only much brighter, and the fox ears always with the same white colour, unlike all the foxes she had seen before, having 2 colours in the ears.

Realizing that Maple was staring at her, the fox smiled sarcastically before adding

"What, do you like me that much?"

This question led Maple, previously focused on analysing her to immediately shake her head while apologizing.

"It's just that you're so beautiful.."

At her words, the fox chuckled as Maple, realizing that the person before her was a fox turned human with the Art of Transformation, she was shocked to see her hands had human appearance, And on top of that, she also had one red nail polish on every nail.

While Maple continued to analyse details about her, the fox responded to her earlier statement.

"Beauty is just a quality, it's not all that can define us"

Although Maple was confused by her words, the fox had uttered every single word with much force in it. Having lived long before Maple, she was aware of the true nature of the world itself, which she could only consider..as wrongful.

But she decided not to get caught up in these strange thoughts before returning attention to the fox she had just 'saved'

"We don't have much time, so I'll just say one thing, you're much more special than you can imagine. Once you are back in the real world, train until you are able to activate this symbol.."

Moving in front of her with a fast move, the fox laid a hand on Maple's fur and placed the symbol while she couldn't even realize what had happened by the speed of the fox, but she could feel a sudden urge to fall asleep as the fox sighed and looked elsewhere.

'I really hate that I have to take care of these things.. they couldn't even give her a symbol...'

While the fox complained to herself, Maple weakly asked

"W..What..is happening..?"

"That symbol will be important for my evocation. Without it, I would be forced to use only your spiritual energy to connect to your world, and this would make it impossible for me to manifest myself, instead using the rules of the contract---"

Seeing that Maple had already disappeared from sleep, the fox closed her fan before sitting down with a sarcastic expression

'And I was also trying to explain...'

This was all she thought before she decided to devote herself to her sword to kill time...

---

(I have a discord server. discord.gg/cpVr5X8. You may ask me: "Why should I enter the server?". Well, I'm replying to every interesting question you readers are asking in my chapters, so, you should absolutely enter if you want to read my answers. Ah, and you can find some image reference of items in the story such as Light..! (Soon even Qienta).. so it's recommended to join, I frequently post polls as well, regarding things that(most likely) will be present in the story. One last thing, I post chapter updates in my discord right after I posted on , so I guess you can join to be able to know when I post chapters faster.)

(Poll going on in the discord: Who do you prefer? Qienta or Light? | Cat-girl or Renard(Fox) | Are you liking the interactions between Maple and Ethan?)

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(Alternate Titles: "Ethan fell asleep! OwO", "Maple's nightmare, The fox came to save you!!", "The mysterious fox")