Chapter 69: Yellow

Two hours before the assault.

The jade-color plane came out from the Green Twinkle with one passenger inside. The pilot, a crew member of the Green Twinkle, was about to drop off the passenger on the designated spot.

By the time of their arrival, many other different ships parked near the Green Twinkle in orbit right on top of the canyon. They all wanted to see the assault of brave, or stupid, psiora. Multiple attempts had been made to conquer the ape canyon but no one succeeded so far.

“Are you nervous, sir?” A pilot tried to start a conversation with the future king. He wanted to be useful and chip in something to the succession of the mission.

“Yeah, I just hope I can last for that long.”

“Not sure if it is the proper time but I will say it anyway. You are kind of a hero in New Tenga, you know? Many young psiora looks up to you. You had only one orb but fought Kardon Gar on equal and even managed to win. Not all psiora have a good resource or enough amount of soul energy to use them. Some have to do regular jobs, some don't use their abilities for their whole life. For those, you became a hero. Just thought that you should know, sorry if I’m bothering you before the important mission.” A pilot showed a guilty smile.

‘Wow, is it for real? I am a hero for somebody. I am a person to look up to. How come? Feels nice though.” Safo didn’t show his surprise, he just smiled back and replied: “When we finish this mission, you will prove that psiora can do unbelievable things even without a resource.” He understood that the young pilot was talking about himself.

A pilot nodded and focused his attention on his job.

When the time came Safo jumped down from the hovering plane and threw a Cannonball attack towards the canyon, making a hole in it. Then he returned to the plane manipulating his jetpack and took a big bag made of fireproof material and threw it inside the hole.

“Alright, give me a couple of hours.” Safo jumped from the plane and moved to the hole that he made.

When the plane took off Safo started the creation of another Cannonball that was way bigger than the previous one. It was his limit, 1.5 meters big fireball. He didn't throw it as he usually did, instead, by only holding it in front of him, Safo easily melted the rock and dirt formation. Melted liquid substance dripped down and a bigger hole appeared. In that way, Safo dug a tunnel to the cave from the other side of the canyon. Hot sparkling glass and a liquid resembling lava were left behind him along the way in the tunnel.

Safo couldn’t keep his resource for more than thirty minutes. He remembered that probably his Soul gauging orb would be two by that time. When he was exhausted, Safo took a break, ate the snacks that he saved in the cloth bag, and meditated to recharge with water from the water well that was in his Soul room.

In two hours he managed to dig a one-kilometer tunnel under the canyon. His tunnel opened a hole, five meters high inside of a hundred-meter-tall cave.

The cave was filled with plants and trees. Most of them had green fruits, berries, and all sorts of vegetables. all green color.

Ape establishment, priorly their females and cubs were busy doing their daily business all over the place. In the middle of a large cave was a place wholly covered in vegetation, across it stood several apes, apparently guarding some old ape.

Safo went back to his bag and took the tool that was the most important part of the plan. It was a big device with a sleep gas in it. Safo was supposed to put it on the floor and turn it on, the rest was assured by the device that could spread enough sleep gas to overflow a huge building.

Safo followed the instructions to the device and dropped it down. It started to emit a grey fog, spreading it with a specific buzzing. Which, of course, attracted nearby apes. Many ran to the device with interest, even one of the guards that served at the center of the cave came to inspect the funny noise. All of them fell unconscious in a matter of seconds, unable to reach the odd new thing in their cave.

Apes that witnessed the event quickly yelled the alarm and soon a cacophony of “oo oo”, “a a” was ringing in the cave. But what surprised Safo was not the fact that they didn’t run away. Kutch already predicted that they would not abandon the cave. But all of the females, baby apes, guards, and the chief of the colony threw themselves towards the greenery in the center of the cave. Every ape in the cave tried to cover it with its body.

Kutch’s second prediction was also true, those apes that were outside, on the duty to protect the cave from hunters, came rushing in and also put their bodies as a defense layer. They were taking care of something that was under the tree leaves, in the center of the cave. And apparently, it was more important than their lives.

“What is there?” Safo felt curious. It should be something very important if, as assumed, mindless apes were shielding it with their body.

While the device kept working, filling the cave with its gas, Safo climbed down with a mask on, he didn’t want to fall asleep with other apes. As Safo stepped closer to a sacral place of apes they couldn’t hold uproarious shouts. A few dozen outside guards moved towards Safo with a clear intention to crush the shameless intruder.

A motion of the left hand and a wave of uncontrollable fear overtook their minds, making them back up. Safo didn’t want to kill anyone, his team was a different type of hunters, those who take only the necessary amount of animals without harming the colony. Psiora newborns' souls needed a body to survive, so their actions were to ensure that their race would not extinct.

Safo saw that Dost closed the only entrance and exit to the cave with his force shield to make sure that no ape would run away. Kutch and Yon were next to him.

Safo Nur slowly walked towards the center of the cave, scaring away the apes. Scattered from the fear they soon were caught by the gas and swiftly fell asleep. Cubs climbed up by trees and vines but there was no escape from the volatile substance. The hole that Safo made was also blocked by a force field device that was similar to Dost’s.

But what shocked Safo was the fact that primary guards of the green center and the chief of apes, hit each other with branches to keep themselves awake. They were doing all they could to keep Safo out of that place, which even more fueled his curiosity.

‘What in the world can they be protecting so hard? Maybe an ape female that is giving birth right now? I can’t think of anything else.’ Safo talked inside of his mask, interesting if Luna had some guesses. Latter had no idea either.

When Safo was three meters away the chief ran away and disappeared inside the leaves, probably to protect the place from within. Other guards dropped down senseless after almost crying at Safo Nur.

Spreading heavy leaves Safo made his way into an open place covered by greenest and biggest leaves, supported by the roots of the tree. An ape chief had a desperate look he was blocking, from the Safo’s sight, something with his huge green body.

“Please let me see what are you trying to hide so bad. Don’t make me hurt you.” Safo used the Fear skill on him but despite curling up into a ball and shaking, the chief covered something on the ground. But after thirty seconds of the Fear, the toughest ape lost consciousness before losing its mind.

Safo gently pushed his heavy body out of the way to see what object was so crucial to them that they were ready to sacrifice lives, only to protect it.

“Are you freaking kidding me? Just only I started to feel guilty that I must have attacked a sapient ape species, you guys do this kind of stupid thing. Screw you!” It was a regular yellow banana. “Did they think that it was important because it was yellow?”

{“I don’t know. Poor monkeys, I thought that we are bad people after seeing them being so brave.”} Luna was also confused by the unfolded events.

“They are as stupid as rocks. Give me that! I won’t let you die because of this thing.” Safo ripped off the fruit and headed to the exit.

Kutch and Yon were yelling hoorays, Dost slowly opened a part of his shield letting Safo out. They all were cheerful after finishing the mission with no casualties on both sides.

“What is that a banana?”

And Safo exploded a ton of nagging about ape race stupidity over a different colored fruit.