“See? It wasn’t that bad.” The elderly woman said, taking a sip out of her cup.

She was sitting on our couch, obviously enjoying our suffering expressions.

I rubbed my sore butt. “Yes Ma’am.” I replied obediently.

I will not ever make the mistake of offending this woman. Remembering the punishment she was capable of dishing out, a shiver ran down my spine.

“Pah, what a weakling you are!” Teacher walked into my line of sight. The smug grin on his face nearly caused me to lash out at him, but I swallowed the words that threatened to come out.

It’s just not worth it.

“Take your friend Owen as an example lad. He’s taken punishment for one and a half!” Teacher shouted, pointing at Owen, who was lying on his stomach due to not being able to sit or lie normally.

“You can’t compare me with a lunatic like him! He’s obviously crazy to take even more punishment.” I grumbled, crossing my arms in front of me like an annoyed child would.

Suddenly pain exploded from my forehead as the old woman flicked it with impossible speed.

“I’m sure you’ll understand when you’re older, lad. In fact, I’m sure it will hit you the hardest.” The old woman said, a smile slowly creeping up her wrinkled face.

I smiled back at her defiantly, knowing that I’ll be prepared when puberty hits me. Hah! Not with me.

Her smile vanished without a trace when she saw that I seemed to know more than I should. “Anyway, now that we’ve found and punished you we’d better return as soon as possible. The sheer number of these insects means nothing good.” She said, turning around and walking towards Owen and Greta.

Teacher, who was standing behind me, picked me and Owen up and followed the old woman. Rather than the faintly sweaty smell that normally surrounded him, a faint flowery aroma entered my nose.

I frowned at the unexpected smell, not expecting for him to smell so strange today, but shrugged it off as unimportant after a few seconds. There are more important things to do right now.

Taking the chance, I whispered into Teacher’s ear, “Teacher, who is that old witch?”

“My wife, so you better watch your tone when speaking to her.” He whispered back without any indication of doing so showing on his face.

Even though I had already expected it, his words still gave me a huge shock. Never in my whole life had I ever expected that there was someone actually crazy enough to marry Teacher. Nothing against him, but he tends a complete and utter asshole.

“You better not think anything rude, boy.” He added without turning around.

What? How did he know what I was thinking?

“How long have you known each other for?” Frank interjects.

“It’s a long story, maybe I’ll tell you when you’re older.” Teacher shook his shoulders whilst walking, causing me and Frank to sway around wildly.

“By the way, can you scratch the part under my left shoulder?” He added, surprising both me and Owen.

“Erm, okay?” I slowly answered, reluctantly searching for the spot he meant after seeing that Owen’s short hands couldn’t reach it.

I randomly scratched around until my hands met something akin to a huge bump.

“Yes, that’s the spot.” He moaned out.

What. The. Fuck.

Am I actually doing this? I sent a pleading look at Owen, but the only thing I saw was a pitying gaze, which didn’t help me at all.

I searched for the old woman, but when I realized she was nowhere to be found I fell into even deeper despair.

I gulped, having a faint notion that this could eventually evolve into a childhood trauma.

Teacher turned his head to glare at me. “Why are you stopping?”

I suppressed the torrent of disgust inside me and hurriedly continued where I left off, scratching the bump furiously.

When we stepped out of the entrance, I was too occupied with thinking of anything but that strange, soft bump that I almost failed to notice small army of soldier ants surrounding our residence. That, by the way, covered absolutely everything in sight.

From the walls of the road of destruction to the occasional tree, nothing didn’t have at least one ant on it, not even a speck of the ground was visible.

Before my jaw could even hit the ground, the insects started to take into the air as if they were a swarm, filling the entire sky with their bodies.

Small rocks and leaves whirled past me at incredible speeds whilst the ones that should have hit us were intercepted by Teacher, who simply swatted them away.

His wife walked up to us. “Let’s leave here quickly. It won’t be long until they return with reinforcement.” She said with a worried face.

“Have you taken care of the house?” Teacher asked.

She nodded, showing its miniature form in her scarred hands.

“Okay, close your eyes and hold on as well as possible brats. This isn’t going to be an enjoyable journey.” Teacher informed us.

What does he mean? Wait, he couldn’t possibly-

He stomped forward, causing my stomach to lurch at the sudden acceleration. My hands, which were previously used to get a better grip on Teacher, were forced from their places, crashing into my torso.

Suddenly the only thing I could see was the azure sky. A few clouds were randomly strewn about in the vast sly, with some even seeming to depict gargantuan animals.

I pushed all the mana my channels were able to handle into my body, forcibly correcting my stance and securing my whole body by curling up as well as possible.

Teacher’s arm, which gripped my body like a vice, helped greatly in that regard. Whenever I turned my body around, it would move with me, providing a reliable support.

I positioned the back of my head at Teacher’s surprisingly hard stomach and closed my already stinging eyes as quickly as I could.

When the wind pressure started to lessen greatly after a few seconds, I finally managed to move my head around.

I didn’t bother to ask why it did, simply because I knew that Teacher would only answer me with some ambiguous words like: “You’ll know when you’re older.”

After a while of testing whether my current position was truly safe, I finally activated my mana vision.

In the time I had taken to adjust to the situation, Teacher had unexpectedly managed to get into the territory of the forest.

Green blurs that vaguely resembled trees were rapidly flashing by as he advanced on something that looked like a dirt road.

“Frank, are you okay?” I inquired as soon as I remembered that he must have gone through a similarly shocking experience.

“I’m fine, but my neck feels like it’s going to break any time now. Seriously, a few seconds of preparation would have been nice.” He replied.

“I know, right? It was far too sudden.” I looked up at Teacher, but he seemed to pay no mind to us.

“Do you know how Owen and Greta are doing? I’m sure they didn’t fare any better than us.” Frank asked after a brief period of silence.

“They are worse off than you. Thanks to the meddling of my wife their faces are touching each other, but they don’t seem to mind.” Teacher finally interjected.

And I was already wondering what was occupying his mind. So it was just Owen and Greta being in a position that children their age would probably find strange.

Seriously, the last traces of common sense any of us had were erased in the last few years of living in that isolated hut, so them not minding that position came as no surprise to me.

“Judging by your expressions, it seems like that isn’t something unusual for you?” He added after observing us for a bit.

“Why should it? It’s not like their faces touching is something strange, right?” Owen answered in his childish naiveté.

We nearly crashed into the ground as Teacher stumbled on some random stone on the road, seemingly unwilling to believe what he had just heard.

“Fuck, it seems we need to knock some common sense into your heads as soon as the situation stabilizes.” He cursed, tightening his grip on our bodies even more.

Wait, he just said we.

“Yes, you heard right. My wife’s last batch has just graduated, so she will occasionally come on my behalf.” He laughed with clear schadenfreude in his voice.

“Oh” Was the only thing I could get out as shivers started to run down my back at the thought of her future visits.