~Memories from the Beginning~

🎯Chapter 26🎯

"Crap..." Mister cursed as he finally broke out of the restraints.

'Damn kids...I thought I had them right where I wanted, but...I never thought she'd go right for the...!' He thought, slightly shuddering upon remembering when and where Emma punched him.

'Anyway, so long, and thanks for the cookies!' He sarcastically thought as he held an empty cookie tin that was not originally empty.

'I'm pretty sure this door opens on the inside, yet it won't budge, but...'

With a click of his tongue, he reached his hand up to a shelf and grabbed something, fingers wrapping around it in a tight grip.

"Y'all playing with grownups now." Mister glowered as he held a knife, the blade shining.

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"We've secured a safe place for now. Time to figure out what to do next..." Ray started.

"How to go about the rescue and escape. That is, how do we get Phil's group out of that place...And then, how do we cross over to the human world."

"We got to think of something..." Emma rubbed her chin.

"I don't have the slightest idea." Nat sighed.

"I was hoping we'd get some guidance from Minerva..." Gilda said in a slightly dejected manner.

"So? What did you find?" She asked.

"What sort of data have they got in that archive room?" Anna nodded.

"Well, lots. We've barely even scratched the surface of everything there so far, but...We found out, for example, the overall classification and general location of the plantations. What kind of farms there are and where...And also, what their particular identification marks are." Ray started.

"Identification...oh!" Nat said as he brought his hand to the number on his neck.

"Yes. Yesterday, that guy showed it to us all of a sudden, right? Gracefield uses digits on the necks...Glory bell, a character string on the belly. The kind of writing, the order of characters, the location of the mark...The details vary from plantation to plantation." Ray said.

"Meaning one can identify them at a glance..." Y/n said as he stared at the ceiling with a blank look.

Then, a playful grin stretched on his lips as he stared at the others with a certain gleam in his eyes.

"Except me, of course. My wonderful bandages cover my identification digits. Saying that, if we ever run into someone looking for Grace Field escapees...Well, it was knowing ya'!" He teasingly saluted.

Ray smacked the back of his head, making Y/n wince as he tried to pull away from the newfound grip on his hair. Ray paid no mind to him and continued the discussion.

"Incidentally, it seems like only the 4 premium plantations bother with unique identifiers with every specimen. The factory farms simply use brands. Each farm has a certain symbol, and they just engrave it at some fixed location." Ray said as he pointed to examples from a book.

"So...If someone knows about these marks, then...Just by seeing them on human cattle like us, they'll also know from which farm we came." Gilda trailed off.

"Right. At the very least, the intelligent demons know about them for sure." Emma nodded.

"We've also found some stuff about the promise, the human world, and the location of demon settlements in this world. Though that part is still not very clear." Ray said.

"There's an encyclopedia of demon world plants... with hand drawings. There's also normal things, like novels and children's books and...We've found some material about demons, but..." Emma trailed off.