"You're telling me that that kid who escaped is going to be killed by some crazy ass outland crap?"
"Yes, pretty much, but all we can do now is hope for the best; as for your son and his friend, they'll have to stay locked up until further notice."
Lann surprisingly didn't feel angry anymore. The recap of the outland incident of six hundred had distracted him from remembering the main reason he was speaking with Luster in the first place. "Fine, but make sure those guards don't fuck around with them; I heard that either my kid or that other one got kicked in his nose by one of those asses."
Luster nodded his head in agreement, and stood up from his chair. "Well, I can definitely see that you've calmed down from a few minutes earlier," he said. "I'll most certainly make sure that those soldiers stay in line."
The large door near the entrance of the forum hall slowly creaked open, revealing a lion general and two lower ranking cadets. The three of them simultaneously straightened their poses, and gave a salute. "Sir Luster, sir!"
"What is it, commander Luzan?"
"Our search teams have just gotten back; there hasn't been any luck in finding Lerod, your majesty."
It's now been three weeks since; Lerod was far out in the outlands by now, how he survived that long is unknown even to me. Acid green, carnivorous plants belched up toxic, corrosive gases, creating a characteristically green haze near the ground. Pools of strange, poisonous waste and dense, visible clouds of carbon monoxide were becoming extremely common to Lerod as he progressed further and further out. "This is how the incident of six' o went, I see," he said to himself, pushing back thick, spiky vines with his hands. "I've lost track of both time and distance, too …"
Lerod was in fact three kilometers outside of Chima's known influence, the extent of which was a circle only twenty five miles wide at the time, making him the first person ever to travel that far into the outlands besides the people involved in the ill fated expedition before. And, for some reason, the farther out Lerod got, the less dense the air around him seemed to be. That meant by the time has was this distance out, he had to breathe in twice as hard to get even the minimum amount of oxygen he needed. If he wasn't going to be killed by something or someone, he'd likely and slowly suffocate.
"Well, it's been getting harder and harder to breath each day." Lerod thought, collapsing into a pool of black mud in exhaustion. His eyes were very red, his breaths were short, and his heart beats were getting slower and slower. It was also nearing midnight, where temperatures would begin to drop drastically. "I don't know what the hell it is out here, but I cannot fucking breathe."