Dan was quite agitated on the next day.
Well, agitated wasn't the right word, but also not that wrong either.
After what happened the previous night, he got a bit more emotional and easy going about everything, to the point that the teachers were a bit stunned.
They barely said anything about Lux, the little ice bear thing that clung to his feathers and clothes the whole day.
Lux was also something interesting.
She (he didn't know how he knew, but she was a girl) would stay by his side and, whenever he felt frustrated and his mana started to move, she would jump on his lap or face and he would immediately calm down and smile.
His face was sore with how much he smiled today.
He tried to ignore all the not so discrete glances the students around him were giving to him as he walked around the corridor.
He was wondering if he should just break the Academy's rules and fly out when someone screamed.
"YOU!"
Startled, he turned his head, just to see a girl with a fanged smile, gray hair and eyes and a girl with red hair and toxic green eyes.
A Witch and a wereperson.
Not the most common combination, but not the strangest either.
But that was not what made him pause.
It was the little thing in the wereperson's arms.
The girl approached him in record time, eyes shining with a beautiful gleam.
"You have one too!" She said "Did you visit the store or someone sent the digivice to you?"
Dan was surprised, not at all expecting the interaction.
After all, that wereperson wasn't just anyone.
She was the younger sister of his brother's employer.
He tried his best to avoid her in the Academy so as not to offend her and result in problems for his brother, but his efforts were in vain as she approached him herself.
"My brother sent me one" He responded simply.
He was already trying to discover a escape route when the girl grabbed him by the hand and pulled him somewhere.
Well, it seems like his plan failed and now he was screwed.
***
"You should rest sir"
Aquila stared at the lizardman in front of his desk.
Bahn has always been one of the calmest people he had ever met, and Aquila respected the man's suggestions, but he could only sigh at the comment.
"I cannot rest Bahn" He said "There's too many things to be done"
'And too many people to deal with' He thought.
"But a break is always a good thing"
"Bota!"
Aquila's eyes turned to the black thing on Bahn's shoulder.
The little thing (Arthur or Arth, as the lizardman called it) has been following Bahn in work for a few days now, and have been wondering what it was.
He watched as the creature jumped on his desk and let out its strange cries, seeming to scold him.
"Did you get a new pet?" He asked, a bit amused.
"Not really?" Said Bahn "This kid is more like a medicine, he is healing my soul"
Aquila looked at the lizardman for a moment, waiting to see if he was joking, but his stoic expression proved him wrong.
"How come?" He asked.
"Give a second"
He watched as Bahn took out a book from his spatial bag and brought it to him.
He took it, then leafed through the book a little.
He found it fascinating, but only one thing came to his mind at the moment.
"Is that why you've been so giggly in the last few days?"
He had noticed how cheerful the lizardman had been since Arthur's appearance, he even became more efficient too and easy to talk with.
"Pretty much" Bahn said while taking a digivice from his pocket "I paid twenty middle-grade Beast Cores for this digivice, and, honestly, it was good price"
He gave the white and orange digivice to Aquila, who gave it a thoughtful look.
"Why don't you go to the store sir?" Suggested the lizardman "Get a digivice for yourself, I know that you have been going more to the temple, it would be good to deal with it already"
He did think of that, but he didn't know just how effective it really was, so it was more of a gamble than anything.
But Bahn seemed to be able to hear his thoughts.
"Have you noticed that there were no reports of Clark attacking people in the last few days?" He said while pulling his phone.
Just the mention of Clark made Aquila sigh.
Clack was the main star of his guild, practically the face of the whole place, a strong gray werewolf that could take down Demonic Beasts many times stronger than him, but with a terrible attitude that made him very detestable to others.
He was surprised that there were no complaints in the last few days, even strangers, some even contacted him to ask if they had replaced him with a lookalike.
He was wondering why Bahn would bring that up when it came to him.
"Does he also have one?"
Bahn smiled and showed the phone to him.
It showed a selfie of Clark hugging a red and spiky creature.
"He was the one who recommended the store to me" Said Bahn "Clark had found the place by chance with his sister and then showed to me, I bought a digivice for me and my brother there"
Aquila stayed in silence for a moment, thinking.
Clark was much more aware of his soul condition then most, yet it reached the point where he became aggressive and no one noticed.
And now he was back to how he used to act when Aquila first saw him as a hookie.
That sat his decision.
"Could you show me the place?"
—
He wasn't used to leaving the guild building, too worried about the people who came to take his position as the guild master, but he had to admit, it was good to walk around the city.
"Puni!"
"Bota"
His eyes fell on the two digikon playing around between the legs of the passerby people, Clark chuckling by his side.
Apparently it was a plan made by Clark to get him to visit the store, but executed by Bahn.
"You wouldn't believe me if it was me recommending" Clark said.
Which, might he add, was true.
Aquila wouldn't trust Clark with anything health related without a good reason.
"I still can't believe that you two convinced the guild master to leave the building"
Calanis, an elf woman and his vice guild master, followed them after noticing them leaving the guild, not at all trusting the lizardman and werewolf to bring Aquila back in one piece, to which he took offence.
He might be a goblin, but he was not made of glass.
"And where are we even going?" She asked.
"It's a store called Digiworld" Clark explain "Nothing dangerous"
Calanis didn't seem to believe him and ready to say something when the werewolf took off after the two fleeing digimons.
"It's over there!"
And, true to his words, there was a small store with a [Digiworld] sign in the front.
Clark entered the place without hesitation, already greeting the people inside.
"Hello Manager! I brought more-"
They all paused at the sight in front of them.
The first person he saw in the store when he came in was a demon child, he seemed young, between 11 to 13, but he noticed that the kid had a strong body.
The boy was on the ground, frozen like a deer in the headlight, his own tail in his mouth, like a dog who finally got his tail after spinning like a spinning top.
They stared at each other for a solid minute before the kid's face became bright red, and he let go of his tail, getting up so fast that Aquila didn't know how he didn't lose balance in the process.
"Welcome to Digiworld, would you like to buy a digivice or card pack?"
The boy had assumed a professional sales persona, making the previous actions seem like they never happened.
Aquila decided to save some face for the boy, knowing full well how this kind of thing would be embarrassing, having already caught Clark doing the same and nearly losing an arm in the process of escaping.
"I came to buy a Digivice" He said "Twenty middle-grade Beast Cores, am I right?"
"Make it two"
He looked at Calanis, who started to open her spatial bag.
"If this thing can calm Clark" She said "Then it's the good stuff"
Fair point.
"Can you add one more?"
All eyes fell on Clark who was taking cores from his own spatial bag.
"My sister's friend wanted to buy one" He said "But students can't leave Academy's grounds unless it's an emergency or weekends"
The boy nodded, going to the counter to grab the keys to the glass doors as they put the cores on the counter.
The boy was quick to bring the digivices and put them on bags, along with the manual.
"Where's the manager?" Bahn asked.
"Eli dragged them out" The boy said "Manny haven't left this building since we arrived in this world two years ago, it's past the time for them to take a walk and touch some grass!"
Aquila froze, and so did the others, eyes on the kid.
"This world?" Calanis asked.
The kid looked at them with a blank expression for a moment, then a look of realization came to him.
"Right!" He said "We digimon survived our world's death, we are what you guys call Survivors"
The way the kid said it, as if it wasn't something most wouldn't even be able to muster without breaking into a sobbing mess, did little to make the room less heavy.
An he didn't stop.
"It was crazy!" He said "Me and my friends were doing our sacred job of making the Digiworld as peaceful as statistically possible, of course, without affecting its integrity, when everything started falling apart! Digimon started to die without a reason, chunks of land and sea disappeared out of nowhere and even the other digital worlds like Witchelny started to be affected, magic started failing, the sky became a mess of tempests and storms and even the smallest attempt to open a connection between worlds seemed to unleash the fury of the disaster! I nearly died many times while trying to save other Digimon from their doom"
That sounded… horrible.
"My condolences" Aquila said.
To see his world die and even nearly die to protect his people.
It must not be easy for such a young soul.
"Oh? Don't worry! Yggdrasil saved us!"
What?
He watched in stunned silence as the kid left the counter to crouch and patted the two digimon on the ground.
"Our God, Yggdrasil, made a deal with the entity you guys know as Deus Machine, or just the System, now the data of all digimon are safe and stored in these digivices you all see, to which Manny build by hand, and gave Manny this store for them to sell the digivices in exchange for cores that will keep everyone safe here! No Digimon was lost in the process, although they all technically died and were reseted, which means none of them actually remembers the Digiworld or that it even existed, but that's for the better, I myself sometimes wish I couldn't"
He smiled, a smile that didn't indicate any other emotion other than happiness.
"Anyway! I'm sure you guys didn't come here to hear about this pile of old data yapping, you came to buy digivices! So here they are!"
The boy pushed the bags to them.
Aquila, still processing everything, didn't respond for a while, nor did the others.
This was more than just a store with a good healing service.
It was a refuge, the last stronghold and also the most recent Survivor nation found in centuries.
He had to report this to the imperial family, they can't just leave a Survivor nation to hang alone.
***
Manny stopped in their tracks, eyes narrowing as their head turned to the direction of the store.
"Is something wrong?" Eli asked.
Manny didn't aswer immediately, still staring at the distance, but soon shook their head and kept walking.
They had sensation that someone was having a misunderstanding.