[Novel] The Mirror [Chapter 4 (1/4)]

"The Guardians are getting stronger so fast."

"Is that what you observe?"

"Yes. Even the latest Guardians are excellent in their first battle."

"I see that Sungmi must try so hard to train them. That's interesting... but it won't last long."

"Why do you think so?"

"The princess' time is limited. She used her remaining power to support their training and awakened the guardians. We can set strategy on how to attack them... we even can attack them from now separately. The good thing is they don't know about us while we exactly know some of them."

"How about the magic balls you ever talked about?"

"We should move faster than the guardians. We should take the balls first. By force, if we must..."

"I'm sorry, I'm almost late!"

Myungwoo still isn't familiar with Minjoon's teleport ability. Even now he still feels shocked when Minjoon appears beside him suddenly.

"It's okay, Minjoon. We know you'll make it on time," said Daesun.

Sungmi keeps on walking around in front of the guardians. She keeps mumbling the things that Myungwoo can't hear clearly. She even looked paler than ever. Now he has a feeling that he isn't the one who feels nervous about their adventure, even the princess too.

"So except Minjoon, everybody comes here through a dream. Are all of your body in a safe place?" asked Sungmi.

"I sleep in Kichul hyeong's room and we lock it!" reported Minsook.

"Me and Bonhwa should be pretty safe in my apartment," reported Myungwoo.

"I sleep in a very unexpected place, so trust me, I'm safe," reported Minseong while giggling.

"What place is that? You didn't tell me," asked Myungwoo.

"Don't worry hyeong," answered Minseong, still giggling.

"And I'm sleeping in my apartment," said Daesun.

"Okay then, everyone except Minjoon, take one of these mirrors and carry it with you,"

Myungwoo takes an oval shape of a small mirror from Sungmi's hand. The mirror is so small until he can keep it inside his jeans' pocket. Minsook keeps his mirror inside the backpack he brings. Minsook, Kichul and Minjoon are the three people who are in charge of the backpack today. The content of the backpack is a stock of chocolate in bottles to recharge their energy.

"Everyone's ready? Now let's head South to Darcy Country!"

"Let's go!" said Minsook who had already jumped forward.

"Minsook hyeong, wait for me!" shout Minseong who jumps following Minsook.

"They are so cheerful. They just never change," said Sungmi while jumping lightly.

"Are we all just the same like our old self?" asking Myunwoo, jumping alongside Sungmi.

"Right. However I wish some things would change..."

"What is that?"

"I hope it's just my bad feeling. Let's finish our mission."

"Princess, do you think the evil side has already moved too?" asked Daesun, jumping to the other side of Sungmi.

"I'm afraid they already moved too. After all, you met one of them."

"The one in the school festival last time? Do you know her?" asked Myungwoo.

"She is the vice general. I have a feeling that the darkness general awakened her first than the other guardians. Her magic is so powerful though. She can resurrect the dead soul."

"That sounds bad..." mumbling Daesun.

"I'll debrief you guys about what I remember about them when we are doing our journey. By the way, if we are jumping with this speed, we might arrive at the shores in the evening. We can sleep there, some of you even can go back to your world and have proper rest."

"Me and Bonhwa even asked permission not to go to the office today but since my boss is Bonhwa, it's easy to just skip work."

"I heard you call my name, hyeong."

Bonhwa appears beside Myungwoo, he has the hare ears.

"Bonhwa! Your ears..." pointed Daesun to the ears.

"Oops, sometimes it appears without I can control it," giggling Bonhwa before suddenly he has normal ears again.

"Let's stay safe and healthy throughout this journey," wished Sungmi.

Deep inside his heart, Myungwoo agreed with Sungmi. Half a day of their journey seems pleasant. Minseong even said this feels like a school field trip for him. They now get closer to each other. When it's time to eat lunch, after persuading Sungmi for a long time, finally she agreed to let Minjoon take Minseong for a quick shopping at a convenience store - by using teleportation. Bonhwa is happily giving them his card. Actually Sungmi just worries that Minjoon will spend his energy on a not-so-important thing, but she finally gives them permission to do it with everyone promising to gather food from nature for tomorrow. After a quick 15 minutes, Minjoon and Minseong come back with three big packages of foods, drinks and of course snacks.

"Remember we should keep some food for our dinner," reminds Kichul as he sits beside Minsook who is busy opening his cup noodle package. 

"I need boiled water," asked Minsook.

"That should be easy. Let's make it, Daesun hyeong," said Bonhwa after swallowing his sausage.

Bonhwa and Daesun both put their hands on the top of the cup noodles then suddenly fire and water come out of their palms before combining and the next second, they can see boiled water fill into the cup. 

"Wow, that's a very useful combination!" shout Minseong while clapping his hands, "I want it too, hyeong!"

"Who needs a sauna if we have these two hyeong together," giggling Minjoon.

"If you're all done with the lunch, let's march forward," said Sungmi, who was forced to eat cup noodles by Bonhwa an hour before.

She insisted that she had never seen a cup noodle in her entire life, but she agreed that it tasted good. With the combination power of Minseong (and sometimes Minjoon) and Daesun, they keep their ice cream frozen. Minseong is jumping happily while enjoying his ice cream. Around 5, they finally can hear the sound of a big wave.

"Are the shores near?" asked Myungwoo.

"Look! Wow, sea!" answered Bonhwa while pointing forward.

They finally reached the shores, but it doesn't look like the beach where Bonhwa and Myungwoo went to. The waves are big and look powerful, the reefs look sharp and there are a lot of them, the water is in dark blue color, it looks deep. It's not just a simple sea in the human world.

"I don't suggest we go in the evening time, there will be many enemies around that time, so let's rest and recharge here, some of you," said Sungmi while looking around.

"How do we go across the sea? By jumping?" asked Minseong, confused.

"Earth guardians can do this special thing: summon ships. But I'll do it tomorrow when we are ready to go."

"How about rest? Will we sleep here?" asked Minsook.

"Right. I don't think all of you need to stay here. Who can stay overnight? And who will come tomorrow?"

"Me and Bonhwa will stay here overnight," answered Myungwoo.

"Me too. I even can directly join tomorrow's journey too," said Minsook, "I don't have certain things to do tomorrow."

"Good, Minsook, but you need to go back tomorrow's evening then."

"I can't join tomorrow, but I might come back at evening, after my work finished," said Kichul, "I even can take care of Minsook's body for the time being."

"I need to skip tomorrow. I have a schedule that I can't skip," Minjoon sighed, "but please tell me if I need to come. Only the princess can reach me."

"Don't worry. Do what you need to do in your world, that's your priority. Remember you can't sleep forever in your world."

"Either me or Bonhwa should go back tomorrow for a very important launching ceremony," said Myungwoo while looking at Bonhwa.

"Oh right... I almost forgot about that. Then I'll be occupied tomorrow," sighed Bonhwa, "I really wanna stay here to join the journey..."

"I'll join after work," decided Myungwoo.

"I'll join tomorrow evening," said Minseong, "I'll have free time after recording!"

"While me, I'll stay here like Minsook," said Daesun.

"Okay, we can do that for now."

"Will we sleep here tonight? On the sand?" asked Bonhwa, who looked as confused as Minseong before.

"We'll build some tents. Please help me with that!' asked Sungmi.

"Oh, I can do that! I learned to make it from a reality show!" said Minseong excitedly.

"Then I wanna learn it from you!" said Minjoon.

"But before that... let's do some training sessions. They will come soon."

"They? Who?" asked Minsook.

And suddenly, from the bush not far from them, they can hear steps and something definitely pushing the bush to break open. 

"No way..." said Bonhwa, his mouth opened wide as he saw the magical creatures who stepped closer to them.

Myungwoo ever seen them before in a game: it's centaurs. There are around 12 centaurs who stepped out from the bush but 5 of them look quite different from the other 7.

"They are centaurs!" screamed Minseong excitedly.

"Minseong is correct. So they are our friendly guardians of the southern line, the centaurs. We have a lot of them but some of them are willing to spend their time to meet us. Thank you for coming here, Crugab. He is the leader of the centaurs clan here in our Guardian Country."

Myungwoo knows how Crugab is the leader: he is the biggest centaurs: his long hair is in dark brown color, his upper human body looks so sturdy, while his lower body - which is in horse form - is in dark brown color too. Even without holding a sword, his figure already looks intimidating - imagine getting kicked or stepped by those legs. As Myungwoo sees again, the other 5 centaurs don't have horse lower body, but they have donkey lower body so they are slightly smaller than the other 7. 

"Of course we are here to meet our princess, the one who saved our clan a hundred years ago," Crugab bowed on his knees as he talked with his deep voice, followed by the other centaurs.

"I'm really happy to see you again. And I hope your clan is growing a lot now?" asked Sungmi while smiling.

"You're right. That's why I also bring some of our cousins from onocentaur tribes."

The half-donkey centaurs bow on their knees once again. As Myungwoo pays attention to each of them once again, he can see half of them are females. They all bring different weapons: sword, bow and spear. 

"Maybe all of you are familiar with the hippocentaur tribes, they are the most common centaurs that human beings mostly know, but they have some other tribes such as onocentaur too."

Minseong and Minsook are waving excitedly to the onocentaur who are also waving and bowing politely to them.

"Princess, are they,...?"

"Do you remember them, Crugab? Yes, they are the Element Guardians, but not all have been awakened yet."

Crugab walks in front of the Guardians while mumbling very lowly. He stared at each of their faces and finally stopped in front of Myungwoo. 

"You are... the leader, light guardian, right?"

"Yes. I'm Kim Myungwoo, the light guardian."

"You still have those eyes... the eyes that show bravery and the willingness to put others first than yourself. I will never forget what you did to save us before... but I guess they forgot everything?"

"Right. As they are reincarnated, they don't remember the past. I have no choice but to wake them up again... I think you know the reason why, Crugab."

"Even the night sky doesn't look as calm as usual. A chaos is ongoing, and if nobody stops it, the darkness will cover the entire world once again," said one of the female hippocentaur, which has long gray hair.

"And that's why we are here," said Crugab.

"They are here to have sparring time with the guardians before we rest tonight and across the sea tomorrow," explained Sungmi while smiling widely.

"I suggest we do a group sparring session," decides Crugab, "I'll choose 6 centaurs, then you, Myungwoo, choose 6 people from your group who you think can counterattack us."

"Good idea, Crugab, it's his first job as a leader."

Crugab walk around his clan before choose 5 of them: two male hippocentaur, each of them have bow and spear; a female hippocentaur with spear who talked before; a male onocentaur with sword; a female onocentaur with bow; and the last one is Crugab himself. Myungwoo is standing facing his Guardian friends. He should choose the correct people from his group to attack the opponents.