That day I woke up early, so early in fact that the usual bright-yellow light morning light was blending with the night time lights creating an interesting mix, I waited for Adam in the living room, he stumbled out of his room a decent two hours later than usual and walked like a crab that shat it's pants.
"Are you alright?" I asked laying on the couch with my legs propped up on the armrest, one arm handing off the couch centimetres off the cold wooden floor.
"Y-yeah…" Adam's voice sounded guttural, like if you were to hold your breath and tense up all your muscles before speaking.
"I overdid things yesterday and now my everything hurts…" He explained.
"Here have something to drink," Lily said handing Adam the white mug filled with a clear brown liquid.
"Ah, thanks…" He grabbed the mug and headed to the couch where he sat next to me.
"Wait a minute, why is she here?!" Adam shouted,
"She came in a bit earlier and I had nobody to talk to so y'know," I replied not taking my eyes off the ceiling as I lay on the couch.
"Just have a sip of the drink, you'll feel better," Lily suggested as she gestured towards the mug.
Adam turned from Lily to the mug, he eyed the liquid, sniffed it and turned back to Lily before asking, "What did you put inside it?".
"Oh, some honey, a bit of lemon, some hot water…and some red spring flower seeds" Lily whispered the last part really fast.
Adam spilt the tea out onto the floor without breaking eye contact with Lily who screamed a little as she saw what he was doing,
"NO! I SPENT ALL NIGHT DIGGING THROUGH THE SPRING FLOWERS TO GET THOSE SEEDS!" she cried as she dropped to her knees.
"Why are you so mean…" Lily asked collapsed on the floor next to the spilt liquid.
"YOU TRIED TO DRUG ME!" Adam rebuked.
"But that's only because you won't-" Lily's justification was cut short by Adam, "DON'T TRY TO JUSTIFY DRUGGING PEOPLE!"
A loud knock came from the door, Adam stood up to open the door, carefully eyeing Lily to make sure she didn't have anything in mind.
"Who is it?" Adam asked cautiously, his hand inches away from the door.
No response, the tension in the air rose, Adam turned to look at Lily, she shrugged grabbing a hold of the crossbow she had God knows where.
I sat up and visualised a snowflake patterned magic circle, as soon as I would open my palm I should let out a spray of ice shards.
Adam didn't have a weapon handy, so he would have had to fight with his bare hands if the attacker came - or so a though, I would eventually find out he uses a spell to make the claw weapons appear and disappear.
Another silent moment passes, the sweat ran down Adam's forehead.
Adam shot all of us the are-you-ready look, we both nodded and so Adam raised his hand, with his fingers he gestured the countdown until opening the door.
Three…
Two…
One…
With way too much force, Adam swung the door open, it hit the wall causing an audible bang which broke my concentration I opened my palm shooting out a spray of icy chunks, the next scene happened in slow motion, as Adam slowly turned around to see the ice flying towards him,
"Boost!" the words came from Lily as a bright green flash came from behind her, launching her in front of Adam taking the hit from the ice and sending her flying out the door with the ice and rolling down the hill.
"S-sorry…" I said, but I was still in a good deal of shock, I could have killed Adam…
"It's alright, I'm fine," Adam replied.
"But what about Lily?" I asked.
"Oh, right. Her sacrifice will not be forgotten." Adam said in a sombre voice, but he couldn't keep the grin off his face, "he must REALLY hate her" I thought.
I looked down to find the source of the knock, it was Abe, the black-haired book worm from yesterday, passed out, head pressed against the door, now laying on the floor.
After noticing him Adam gave Abe a swift kick to wake him up.
"Eh? Ah?" Abe looked around the house he was now laying on the floor of before starting to talk.
"The boss said he's taking the dryads to the camp for today and that he'd return them this evening." Once Abe recited the message he went back to sleep.
"Damn, Darthold is really getting into the grandpa thing, isn't he?" Adam laughed as he turned back to me.
"I guess?" I replied uncertainly, after all, I didn't actually understand the message delivered by Abe.
Adam looked down to Abe again, he kicked him one more - "If you're that tired just come inside, you can sleep on the couch for now." He offered, I found it strange how trusting Adam was, that said I did like that Abe guy.
"It's alright, the ground here is quite comfortable…" he replied lazily.
Adam picked Abe up, and dragged him to the couch before he let out a sigh, "Is Darthold really working you guys this hard?!" he asked.
Abe shook his head, "Not really…I'm just replenishing mana by sleeping…although I guess we were up late yesterday…" Abe said through a yawn.
"Were you guys partying or something?" Adam asked it'd make sense - after all they did win a battle not too long ago…
"No, it was work…" Abe sighed sadly.
"Work?" Adam asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Yeah, didn't you guys hear? The town of Boren, east of the capital is allegedly under attack from some monsters…" Abe explained.
"Well, did you guys find any monsters?" Adam asked.
"Nah…just some corpses... but you know… it's near the capital so corpses are to be expected..." Abe didn't need to finish his reasoning, "Yeah, I getcha'…" Adam replied.
"Well, did you hear that? Looks like they're some monsters creeping around the towns near here! This is our chance to show you around!" Adam laughed.
"I have literally no idea what you are on about… teach me the fucking language already!" I demanded.
"Fine, fine, but it's not something you'll just learn in a day," Adam warned grabbing a book from the bookshelf next to the door and walking to the armchair, I sat on the couch, next to the (admittedly short) sleeping figure of Abe.
"I'll have you know I already learned a fair bit of languages..." I replied.
"Ah - that's right, so do you remember all the languages you ever learned?" Adam asked.
"No, I'd say I remember the previous world's language perfectly, and then every world before it my language skills decrease by like fifty percent... except for the profanities," I explained.
"I see, well learning this language shouldn't be a problem for you!"
Adam opened the book he took out from the small shelf located in the space between the couch and armchair.
He taught me a good bit in the short time we were bothered to actually work, my vocabulary was tiny but I had a grasp on the grammatical rules of the language about an hour into learning, it's actually a lot easier than English, except for the written form which I didn't bother to learn, giving what is most likely the average level of education in this world.
The grammar resembled English - but it was boiled down to caveman speech in a way.
"Right, I think that's enough learning for today!" I exclaimed after add or take two hours of work, "Yeah…I haven't worked this hard in years…" Adam sighed.
"You mean you did this kind of stuff before?" I asked, "I mean, yeah - I forgot you had to learn the language at some point too." I answered myself before he could say anything.
"That's not what I meant, I used to go to this big magic school way east of here," Adam explained.
"Wait, you were a magic nerd?!" I asked in shock, Adam didn't seem like an expert when it came to magic... though he did manage to explain the laws and types of magic to me, someone with literally no magic knowledge.
I've seen a lot of world with 'magic' - but it's either just a property of the world like chemistry or a simple law of physics - keep in mind these laws change world to world so I didn't bother learning more than I needed to survive and or kill myself.
"I was good in practice, but the theory made no sense to me… I was a professor of microbiology back on Earth and now I had magic explained to my through myths and stories about Gods..." Adam said seeming embarrassed.
"You don't seem to use a lot of magic in practice either…" I commented.
"What do you mean? I use boost and… I used fireball a few times…" Adam stopped for a second, "Actually, I was also bad at memorizing spells so I don't know all that many..." he hung his head down in shame with an embarrassed smile.
"By the way, is there a reason he's sleeping here?" I asked pointing over to the sleeping Abe.
"He was up late searching a local town for some monsters," Adam replied.
"Oh yeah, you mentioned something about monsters earlier," I exclaimed thinking back to the event.
"Well, wanna go check the place out?" Adam asked,
"The monster town? I mean we don't have anything better to do…" I replied.
"Yeah, plus if we kill the monster the people will shower us with money and admiration!" Adam added,
"...and here I thought you're doing it for the good of the people..." I said smiling.
"Dear God you're smiling!" Adam exclaimed.
"I smile all the time..." I replied confused.
"Yeah but nobody's getting injured or insulted!" Adam added.
"Your opinion of me is disturbing... and what's worse accurate..."
"Oh! And if we're lucky you might get a chance to chat with the native speaker! Except me that is…" Adam exclaimed.
"Alright, let's go…" I said patting my side to make sure I had my dagger and the few spare coins I keep on me just in case I get into some trouble…or just get hungry.
"Yes, sir!" Adam said standing up, stretching and walking towards the door - I followed.
We made our way down the mountain, to the left was the way to the town of Rennel, to the right was the way leading to the capital, we turned right and kept walking past the road which led to the capital until we left the forested area and entered a dry looking rural town, the entire landscape looked flat and was mostly covered in fields, the fields grew what looked like corn, tall crops with a round ball-like top, it was see-through and filled with some sort of liquid, the stem was thick and dark green, the leaves which covered the relatively straight stem was small and plentiful, they grew like hairs obscuring the stem itself - they were green in colour but had dark purple edges, as for the ball like fruit, it was orange and the liquid was either yellow or clear.
"What the hell are those?" I asked looking at the crops.
"They're called ullar trees, the liquid is crystallized into sugar and the skin is pickled and used for cakes and stuff, it kind of tastes like a canned peach when ripe... except kind of floral, and the inside tasted like a cross between honey and vodka," Adam explained.
"So mead?" I asked.
"No, mead has an alcoholic taste, but it doesn't have that odour that vodka does, in the process of making the sugar, we take the alcohol that fumes and cool them to make alcohol! The stem is used as food for the birds." Adam explained.
"I guess no part of them goes to waste," I said looking at the ullar trees closer.
"It is quite an impressive system." Adam agreed,
Turning back to the road I was greeted with the large stone walls, they were only about two meters tall, they were made from old, damaged stone bricks.
The wall was pretty thin, when you go through the massive open gates which didn't even have actual doors anymore, on the inside the walls had piles of dirt creating a slope you could climb.
The inside was mostly small houses, they were made from stone bricks, less damaged than the walls but still pretty worn out. The roofs were created from grey-red and orange tiles, despite the rustic aesthetic the place was very clean, the roads were dirt but they were extremely flat.
At the centre of the town stood a massive wooden construction, the base of which was stone. The wooden building had several platforms attached to its sides with stairs and ladders linking the different platforms, the sides of the building had massive barrels, so did the top of the buildings.
The massive metal pipes led down the side of the building and through the ground down to a well, where the pipe cut through the path there was a wooden bridge placed over it.
There were little to no people outside, no children, not merchants, only an elderly woman sweeping the front of her home and two men sitting on a fence discussing something.
"Well, this place looks lively…" I said sarcastically looking at the houses,
"It is a rural town, and people are going missing on top of that." Adam justified the empty roads.
We walked towards the older woman, but before we got a chance to ask her anything she hurried over to her house before shutting the door.
Next, we set our sights on the two men, we walked up to them and I let Adam do the talking.
"Hey there, we heard there's been some stuff going on in the town lately," Adam said trying his best to look reassuring.
"First I'm hearing about it." Grunted the man sitting closest to Adam.
"Don't be that way, we're here to deal with this so-called monster," Adam said playfully giving the man a thumbs up.
"We're telling you there's no monster!" the repeated sounding more irritated, he more a grey t-shirt with short sleeves and an unbuttoned front down to about midway down the body, he was tanned - it's evident he worked in the fields.
His hair was black and short, his arms were thick and covered in hair, his trousers were black and made of what resembled tracksuit material.
Physically the man looked a lot larger than Adam.
The man that sat on the further side of the fence wore a similar outside, but with long sleeves and a straw hat, he had a longer face with sunken green eyes and spiky red hair which hung down to his shoulders.
He was a lot paler than the other man, he was also a lot thinner.
"Are you telling me this town always looks like this?" Adam asked obviously knowing they're lying.
"What the hell are you implying?" the larger man demanded - grabbing Adam by the collar,
"Alright, look here, there is nothing in this town, no monsters, no murderers, no nothing!" the man roared.
"Now, now - we just want to help!" Adam said calmly.
The man drew back his fist ready to plunge it into Adam's face, grinning the whole time Adam dodged the punch, stepping forward - hooking the man's neck and placing his left foot behind the man's right leg causing him to fall over before placing him in a headlock.
"Come one, buddy. Help us out!" Adam pleaded, gently squeezing his neck, not enough for him to chock but enough to show him that he could choke him.
The red-haired man let out a sigh, "Leave him alone, I'll explain the situation to you…" he said not taking his eyes off the mid-day sun.
Adam let the man out of the headlock and stood up patting the dust off his clothes, "Thanks!" he exclaimed patting the clothes clean of the dust.
"Somehow I don't see us getting showered with money and gratitude now..." I though.
"I do have a question, what do you intend to do if you find the monster?" he asked.
"Kill it of course," Adam replied with a shrug.
"And if you can't?" the red-haired man slowly turned his head towards Adam, his eyes looked empty, with bags under his eyes.
"They will run for the hills and hope someone qualified deals with it." Adam shrugged.
The red-haired man let out a long sigh, "Name's Owar, I'm the owner of the brewery here." he introduced himself, he was pointing to the large wooden structure.
"I'm Adam, and this is…they don't have a name, so just call the nameless child." Adam explained the last part awkwardly.
I lifted my hand slightly as if to wave a 'hello' at them,
"The guy down here is Derl…he's the head farmer round these parts…" Owar said gesturing towards the man rubbing his necks after bring chocked.
"So the big building's a brewery?" Adam asked.
"Mm, though we're runnin' a bit low on people."
"Where are you guys from?" Derl asked in a raspy voice.
"We're from south-west of here," Adam explained pointing his thumb back towards where we came.
"Well, I bet you guys heard about the murders…" Derl said looking towards some house.
"I've heard there were some murders, that's it," Adam replied.
"Over in that house, the body was spliced into pieced, the guts were missing - that's why we assume it's a monster or an animal," Owar said moving his head towards the building directly opposite where we stood.
I followed Adam's gaze, "What's up?" I asked.
"Allegedly someone got killed in that house," he replied.
I moved towards the house and looked in through the window, there was no body, but the walls and floor were coated in blood.
"It's pretty bloody…" I said looking over to Adam.
"Did you bury the body already?" Adam asked the men,
"Yeah, what was left of it was buried two days ago…" Derl replied.
"Were there any other victims?" Adam asked.
"It's been one person a day for the last two weeks, and today the population is down to six including us two…" Owar explained, he stood up picking up something Adam and I didn't notice until now - a long scythe.
"I'll be waiting here until the ugly son of a bitch shows up tonight…" Owar said in a sombre, exhausted tone.
I tried to open the door, finding that it wasn't locked.
The room had a strong smell of iron and rot - I stepped inside- the centre of the room was essentially a large puddle of blood.
The walls were filled with bookshelves, there was a table in the corner of the room with two chairs and one bowl set out.
When I looked at the walls closer I saw one long gash cut into the plaster wall of the building, I stepped out of the building and made my way towards Adam - "There's some big scratch mark thing inside," I explained to Adam.
"Anything else?" He asked.
"A lot of blood, a lot of books and a table." I listed off everything inside the building.
I looked up only to see a massive hole in the roof - "There's also a pretty big hole in the roof."
"Yeah - we can all see it from out here..." Adam replied.
"So I'm just that short eh?.." I thought.
"Well, that's not much of a clue…" Adam sighed scratching his head.
I shrugged, "So what about them?".
"Guess it's some big bird that snatched up the victim..." I concluded uncertainly,
"And then placed them back neatly in the house?" Adam asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Don't underestimate the evil nature of birds... they wanted us to see the body..." I replied.
"...you don't like birds... do you?" Adam asked awkwardly.
"Not in the least..." I replied.
"Why?!" he asked confused.
"Some things are best left unspoken..." I replied thinking to the life where I was abducted by a bird and grew up on a secluded island for four years only to be found by a passing ship which was destroyed by a massive bird, the next day I washed up on the beach of the same God-forsaken island... I was the bird's prisoner...
"The red one is some important guy, he said he's waiting for the monster to show up so he can kill it," Adam explained.
"Alright, ask him what kind of people the monster goes after, maybe it's like that one show with the dog solving mysteries - like the monster actually slaughters people brutally to scare off the villagers so he can take over the place," I suggested.
"So… are you suggesting the monster is a disguised villager?"Adam took a second to think of the implications of a human wearing a massive bird costume devouring human flesh meant for humanity as a whole, then turned back to the people "What kinds of people does the monster go after, is there a specific demographic?" he asked.
"He started off with the children and the sickly - now he's after the elderly…" Owar explained.
Adam turned to me, "Sick people, kids and old people in that order, I guess regular adults are next on the chopping block." he explained.
"Alright," Alright I replied grabbing my dagger,
"Where was it seen last time?" I asked.
"Are you planning to just go stab it?" Adam asked with a raised eyebrow and a doubting smile.
"I'll be bait, and then I'll stab it." I clarified.
"Well, allegedly this house there is the most recent murder scene." Adam clarified pointing to the house I just left.
"Are there any kids or sick people left?" I asked.
Adam asked the men and returned with the reply, "There is one sick kid, but she's been bedridden for most of her life so she's most likely not even noticed by the monster." Adam explained.
"Alright, assuming I have a one-hundred per cent chance to get attacked, and being sick and being a child is the same for the monster, that'd be three-hundred per cent," I exclaimed,
"I don't think they'll let us drag the bed-ridden child out into the streets," Adam replied.
"Even if the kid dies, that's a one to the rest of the village ratio - I'd say they're being unreasonable." I shrugged.
"Yeah, it's this thing called morals, it's not something you'd be familiar with." Adam laughed.
"Go on, ask them where the kid is." I sighed.
"Hey, so can we go see where the kid is? I mean that's the most likely target now." Adam asked Owar.
"I dunno… I doubt she'd be of any use to you two, she can't speak properly since she's hardly ever awake - a pity really… poor kid's done with life from the start…" Derl replied.
"It's alright, she might be the next target-" Adam was cut off by Owar,
"So she's bait?" he asked,
"I wouldn't phrase it like that, but…. yeah." Adam relented.
Owar let out a long sigh, "You westerners have no morals at all do you?" the man scoffed before standing up and walking towards the big wooden structure.
We followed him, walking up the stairs and through several hallways, the walls were wood, but the floors had a carpet in some places.
We eventually reached a door with something written on the door, the man stood against the door, he took a deep breath and opened the door revealing a horrifically pink room,the walls had pink wallpaper, the floor was covered in a fluffy pink carpet, the bed in the centre of the room had a white bed, with pink sheets.
In the bed lay a person looking either my age of a few years older, she had a shade of hair I find hard to describe, it's not blond…but it's yellow… like a very saturated yellow colour.
"Why are you keeping this child in the brewery? Shouldn't you look for a doctor?"
"Well - we tried getting doctors in here - but they weren't able to do much." Owar replied - "Also this place servers as my house as well - it's not just a brewery..."
"So this is the dying kid?" I asked rhetorically seeing at this did, in fact, look like a dying kid.
"What do you think is up with her?" I asked stepping up to her,
"Don't get too closer, you'll get sick." One of the men in the doorway warned - Adam translated the warning into English for me.
"So - what is the disease?" Adam asked, "It's the coughing disease…" the man replied.
Adam let out a sigh and turned back to me, "They just called it a coughing disease, around these parts that just means something that makes you cough as a symptom…" he replied disappointed.
"So coughing…she has a fever," I added touching her forehead.
"Adam, what are the chances of this just being a really bad cold?" I asked.
"As a semi-qualified medical professional, I can tell you a flue doesn't last this long… a bad flue can last ten days, a cold will clear up in three… they can lead to worse problems but that's about it." Adam clarified - "That said, we are making the assumption the bacteria and viruses here ar the same as on Earth - which is a bit of a stretch..." he added.
"I mean... we have trees here too, though..."
"You mean other world don't have trees?" he asked.
"Depends - I'd say about one in ten worlds can be compared to Earth, out of those about ninety percent are earth-like when it comes to plants and stuff."
"So there are worlds with... like... no fungi?"
"Yeah - I'm no scientist but there are a lot of types of life you guys are missing out on," I replied.
"Like?"
"Like for example clouds - they were the equivalent of cells suspended in air - they grew like plants so instead of fields of grass there were vertical layers of massive clouds - as a cool side effect sometimes it rained fruit - as a not-so-cool side effect sometimes it rained rock-hard nuts that annihilated all life below."
Adam looked visibly excited at the mention of this kind of life.
"I wish I got a chance to study them..." Adam said disappointedly.
"We still have a child to fix..." I said pointing at the kid.
"Ah - right, children first, clouds second..."
"Ok, how do we fix it?" I asked.
"We kind of have more pressing matters on our hands right now," Adam replied uncertainly.
"Yeah, but I'm not bothered to wait for her to wake up and I think I'll get in trouble for slapping her until she wakes up, so would you cure this?" I asked.
"I guess…antibiotics and water." Adam shrugged,
"Alright, alright, and what does and antibiotic do?" I asked.
"Kills bacteria…" Adam seemed concerned with my lack of medical knowledge.
"So if I used magic to annihilate all bacteria inside of this girl…" I suggested.
"Then she'll die…" Adam finished my sentence.
"What do you mean!?" I asked confused.
"Bacteria in our gut help us digest food and absorb the nutrients from it," Adam explained.
"Alright…what if I just remove the bacteria from her lungs?" I asked.
"I mean… it'd help, but it's not like the bacteria are located exclusively in the lungs, that's just where the most obvious symptoms are," he replied.
"Alright, so clear lungs of bacteria, cast a healing spell in case I fucked up, anything else?" I asked.
"If you could make a spell that specifically increases the number of lymphocytes in the blood that'd help," Adam explained.
"Ah yes, …lymphocytes…my favourite…" I said showing Adam I have no idea what he's on about.
"White blood cells," Adam explained.
"Oh, there's no need for you to speak like a smart-ass, we know you're smart!" I exclaimed not knowing what to do.
I created a tiny white circle with little spikes - basically it looked like the outline of a white blood cell, I visualised how the spell would work - I imagined it like a ray which penetrates the body and interacts with the blood.
I opened my palm creating a ray of white light which shot out from my palm, I hovered my palm over the girl making sure not to overdo the spell in any one place.
"Right, this should be good!" I exclaimed, as a side effect I discovered the type of magic emitted from the circle depends on your expectation - as in I wanted a ray and the spell shot out a ray... then again, you have to really concentrate on what you want - you could get a random shape... so if I imagine a projectile I could shoot people with the spell, good to know, but I think creating more circles to describe how the spell works would be safer!
Now I created a black circle, I associate it with death and stuff - I made it the shape of a bacteria's outline - you know with the little bits sticking out, I imagined the lungs being highlighted like in a video game.
I clenched my fist and was able to see the pale green light visible through the skin and clothes of the person.
"She should be alright now…" I commented confused as to why she wasn't alright instantly.
"I guess she's still tired, you're always low on energy after being sick," Adam explained.
"Alright, how do we fix that?" I asked.
"Food and drink I guess." Adam shrugged.
"..." I walked to the passed out girl, raised my hand and preceded to slap her until she woke up.
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING TO THE SICK CHILD!?" Derl cried stepping closer only stopping when the girl sat up and began coughing violently,
"Fuck, I thought she was cured already…" I complained.
I felt her grab me by the hand - and then snap it.
I looked down at my hand which now hung loosely as a horrific pain radiated my arm.
In almost and instant I cast the healing spell onto my hand but I could still feel the pain persist for a bit.
I took a deep breath and took out my dagger, "What the hell do you think you're doing?!" the no longer sick girl demanded
"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN!? I CURED YOUR DISEASE AND NOW YOU'RE BREAKING MY BONES?!" I demanded ready to shoot the child but Adam grabbed me from behind restraining me.
"No, you were just slapping me around, weren't you?" she asked in the same low, threatening tone as before.
"To wake you up!" I explained.
"STOP MAKING EXCUSES!" I cried back.
"Dude, dude, isn't it weird that we can understand her though." Adam awkwardly butted in,
"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" the girl and I cried in sync.
Adam breathed a sigh and walked over to the men to explain the situation.
The girl began coughing violently again,
"Adam, explain," I commanded pointing at the couching girl at a safe, non-wrist snapping distance.
"The alveoli are still swollen, I guess," Adam replied with a shrug.
"Ah yes - I'd hate to have swollen ravioli..." I replied straight-faced.
Adam walked over to the girl, "Alright, so you know how to speak English, does that mean you're from earth?" he asked.
She didn't reply for a second,
"Wait…you mean you two are from Earth as well?!" she was looking more excited and less violent.
"Yeah, my name is Adam and this is Nameless child." Adam introduced us, she girl looked over to me again, with more of a doubting and less of a murderous look.
"That's a weird-ass name…" the girl said as an insulting grin spread across her face.
"Adam, that ain't no child - lucifer reincarnated as a little girl..."
"Actually he couldn't come up with a name so he just goes by Nameless child," Adam explained, although he too was smiling.
"That's pretty sad…" the girl said looking at me with the same grin.
"That's it, I'm shooting you all," I announced.
Adam let out a weak laugh before seeing me raise the dagger into the air, causing him to yell out to the men telling them to run, before anyone could react I found myself at the receiving end of a kick from the allegedly sick girl, sending me through the thin wood walls of the building and out, luckily for me I landed in some tree, otherwise I would have surely died from a fall that long.
I got off the tree and started taking pot-shots at the large wooden construction with weak fire spells,
Meanwhile, inside of the building, the girl walked over to Adam who was seemingly regretting some decisions, "Hey, do you have a coin or something?" she asked.
Adam reached into his pocket, "Sorry I only got….one, two - four copper on me." Adam said apologetically.
"It's alright, one will do," she replied taking the one coin, she took the sheet off her pillow and placed the coin inside, she walked up to the big hole she created, she started spinning her makeshift weapon before releasing it in my vague direction, it hit the tree splintering it into bit.
Moments later I raised a leftover twig with the sheet tied to it as a makeshift white flag.
"How'd you do that?" Adam asked in awe, "I mean if you were bedridden surely you'd be too weak to do that." he added.
"I dunno," the girl shrugged.
Adam turned back to the villagers, "H-hey…do you guys know the parents of this girl?" he asked awkwardly.
"Like were they demi-gods by any chance? Was it Hercules? It was Hercules wasn't it?"
"N-no…but according to the note left by whoever brought her here, she's a half-ogre," Owar replied.
"A half-ogre?" Adam asked in shock, he turned back to the girl seeing that she does in fact not resemble an ogre.
"Anyway, thank you for the help, and yeah I'm from Earth." the girl said stretching.
"No problem, but I'm not the one that healed you." Adam laughed awkwardly pointing to the hole in the wall.
"Oh…crap…that'll be awkward," the girl said scratching her head,
"Don't worry about it, he's not as terrible as he seems." Adam shrugged.
"Hah, I thought it's a girl." she laughed.
"It's complicated…" Adam replied reluctantly not mentioning how willing she was to snap the wrist of a child.
"Anyway, let's go. I have some questions for you guys," she explained.
"Alright, but first, what's your name?" Adam asked.
"Oh, that's right, feel free to call me Kate, it's what I went by back on Earth," she explained.
"Alright, where are we going?" Adam asked following the girl as she pushed the two men in the door to the side.
"We're going down to see this friend of yours," Kate replied heading down the wooden construction's halls and stairs until they reached the remains of the tree was near.
"Yo, I hear you're the one who healed me, after all," Kate called out to me.
"That's what I was trying to tell you before you tried to kill me…" I replied still in shock almost dying twice today, looking to what remained of the tree.
"Stop being a baby, you're alive aren't you?" she asked rhetorically,
I inspected my arms and torso to make sure, "Yeah, turns out I'm alive…heh…" I replied.
"Anyway, thanks I guess," Kate said, I didn't reply,
She turned back to Adam, "So, do you guys know why we're here?" Kate asked,
"No idea, but there are a few other people from Earth I heard off, aside from that we've no clue," Adam replied.
"I see, and what can you tell me about this world?" she asked.
"Let's see…it's a fantasy world, we have magic - just about all plants and animals are different, and the people don't speak English, so you need to learn the language." He explained.
"Alright, one more thing, why'd you two come to help me out anyway?" She asked.
"That wasn't our plan, we had nothing to do and we heard that there is some monster in this town - the locals said it goes after sick people and kids, so when we found out you're both we decided it might be the perfect opportunity, that said we ended up curing your disease so y' know." Adam clarified.
"Oh…so I'm meant to be bait?" she asked.
"Kind of, I mean it'd go after you regardless. Think of it as … us guarding you." Adam explained.
"No worries, I'm interested to see what this monster looks like!" she replied before looking over to me, "But I doubt the nameless brat would be of any use." she laughed.
"They're quite the skilled magician," Adam replied.
Kate rolled her eyes, "Sure, he can heal some people, and he had that dagger looking thing, but what good would it do against like… a dragon?" she asked.
The two men from outside caught up with us, "What's going on?!" they demanded,
"She can't speak the language yet, so I can translate for you guys if you want." Adam offered in response.
Adam proceeded to explain everything that happened, at first the men seemed reluctant to believe that they're from another world, but seeing as they could speak a different language and were generally weird people - they eventually believed them.
"So the wall crasher is from this Earth place too?" Owar asked,
"Yep," Adam replied quickly.
"And she agreed to be bait?" Derl asked?
"Yep," Adam replied again.
"When's it coming?" she asked, Adam, translated the question to the two men who replied with "It comes out around midnight."
"Did you make sure the monster isn't staying in the wooden building?" Adam asked the men, "No…should we, boss?" Derl asked looking at Owar.
"I guess…but you better tell us if the monster shows…" he warned Adam who just nodded.
As the moon and or sun rose higher into the sky it was near midnight, Adam, Kate and I sat around a small fire occasionally seeing a lamp's light from inside of the wooden building.
"So... it's always day?" she asked looking at the sun-like moon emitting a pale blue light.
"No - not really, I mean we sleep when the blue sun is out... guess it's harder to see..." Adam replied.
"I understand, the light during the day emits more colours than the night meaning we can recognise more colours during the day and as a result see better."
"...maybe." Adam shrugged.
"Still, it's hard to believe I'm not even human here!" she exclaimed.
"Yeah, half-ogre!"
"What are ogres like here?" Kate asked,
"They're... about two meters tall, greyish-yellow skin, they're mostly nomadic and live in the deserts," Adam explained.
"Damn, I wish it'd hurry up already." Kate sighed,
"I don't know, I enjoy the atmosphere," Adam replied staring into the starry night seeing the big blue moon coating the world in a blue hue,
"Screw that, I just want to beat the crap out of some monster already…" Kate replied.
She looked over to me seeing me still limply sitting hunched over on the grass.
"Maybe I overdid my introduction a bit…" Kate said looking at me.
"He'll be back to normal eventually," Adam replied dismissively.
In the distance a loud creaking noise was heard grabbing everyone's attention, they saw one of the massive barrels used for storing alcohol was starting to shake, the lid was taken off as a tall lanky humanoid stepped out, it's legs were bony and no thinner than tree logs, but he was at least fifteen-meters tall, with stretched out grey skin, and a small round head, two massive eye sockets, they were empty and coated with the grey skin on the inside as wells, it's mouth was an 'M' shape with several hundreds of needle-like teeth twitching in different directions, for the nose it had one hole torn-open in its skin revealing it dry, leathery flesh, black and almost crumbly looking.
On its head were two massive antlers they looked like they weren't in fact covered in the skin, and were a solid black colour.
The beast jumped down and sniffed the air, slowly it turned it's attention towards the fire, where it eyes Adam, and I before turning to the Kate.
Slowly at first, the creature moved towards us before breaking into a gorilla-like sprint.
"What the hell is that?" Kate asked seemingly shocked by its grotesque appearance.
Adam took out his claw weapons swiftly attaching them to his arms with the small brown buckles on the forearm bit of the gauntlet.
"Boost!" he exclaimed create a blue circle under his feet which shot him forward towards the creature allowing him to bury his claws into the back of the creature's leg, the skin was harder than it looked and the flesh was also tough.
I handed the dagger over to Kate,
"N-no - you keep it!" she demanded,
I didn't have time to argue and walked towards the monster ignoring Kate's protests.
I created a red magic circle with a flame pattern, inside of it I had a grey-blue circle with swirly wind shapes, I imagined it would fire one projectile and as the monster drew closer, dragging Adam who's claws were lodged in it's flesh I opened my palm before closing it resulting in one fire projectile - as soon as it hit the creature it exploded into a bright light which fizzled charring it's flesh and causing its flesh to flake off, the fire exploded in the direction I was aiming, if there were any houses behind the creature they would surely be charred by now.
The creature stumbled falling over and landing face-first into one of the small buildings.
I felt a sudden bout of nausea as I bent over spewing what I could only assume was blood, I guess this is the result of using more mana than you have…
"What the hell did you do?!" Kate demanded as she made her way towards me,
I felt my vision going dark - when suddenly I had the best idea yet, I created a white circle with arrows going towards me, and a blue mana circle inside, I made sure to make the grass my target, I was able to gather enough mana from the grass to stand up.
I saw the creature stand up, the skin growing over the charred off pieced of its body, it's attention still fixated on Kate.
"It's regenerating!" Adam called out eventually wriggling his claw weapons lose and creating some distance between them before casting 'Fairy fire' on the creature, the blue fire did minimal damage to the creature,
"Fairy fire drains the creature's mana, maybe it won't be able to regenerate now!" Adam called out,
"I'll shoot it again!" I called back, I created the same fire spell as before except I made the air circle bigger, the bolt shot towards the creature emitting a whistling noise as it flew before exploding into a roaring flame completely removing its head causing the creature to once again fall forward, this time onto the ground.
"Great, looks like that's done…and I'm not even dead-" I was cut off by another volley of blood spewed out from my mouth,
"Shit…why am I bleeding from mana loss of all things…?" I asked rhetorically before absorbing some of the mana from surrounding plants.
"Is it dead?" Kate asked,
"No idea…I'll go see…" I replied standing up and walking towards the charred body, before long it began to twitch, soon it stood back up letting out a furious roar before running on its two legs straight for Kate, I already had the fire spell ready,
"Don't! - You'll burn her too!" Adam cried.
"..."
"DON'T YOU DARE…" Adam threatened,
"Fine…" I grumbled to myself before casting boost, shooting myself forward and kicking Kate out of the way.
"Hey!" she cried as I kicked her (admittedly with the aid of the boost spell) a good few meters away, I felt a tightness around my torso as I saw the creature picked me up and began moving me closer to its massive open mouth,
"Hang in there!" Adam called out boosting forward slightly trying to get over to me as fast a possible,
"No rush, I've died recently - I don't mind giving it another shot," I replied jokingly, my voice still panicked.
"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING!?" Kate demanded,
"You deserved the kick, that's all!" I replied.
"And don't you think for a second this was of my own goodwill, Adam told me not to char you, and I just wanted to kick you around for a bit-" my explanation was cut off by the creature throwing me into its toothy jaw, where I evaded most of the teeth and fell straight into its stomach.
Kate rushed over to the creature a mix of rage and confusion temporarily becoming courage, she rushed over ignoring Adam's warnings, stabbing and beating the creature who simply regenerated after every hit.
"Fuck... this was a bad idea!" she called out.
It picked her up, squeezing tightly as it threw her into its mouth, aside from getting cut on the arm she really suffered no damage, she fell down into the stomach only to land in a pile of decaying bodies of the local villagers, they formed an island in the lake of stomach acid.
"Oh, hey. Nice of you to drop in." I said sitting on the beach of this island.
"You're alive!" she exclaimed.
"Surprisingly, I guess it's good that humans are hard to dissolve in stomach acid." I shrugged.
She looked around seeing her surrounding, seeing that she was standing on rotting and torn up remains of dozens of people she let out a scream followed by vomiting,
"Go ahead, it's a stomach we're surrounded by puke…" I replied.
"What the hell's wrong with you?!" she demanded looking over to me,
"Not much, how about you?" I replied.
"How can you stay so calm in a place like this?!" she cried looking around seeing that everything was covered with blood.
"Oh, did you know some of these people?" I asked realising I may be rude by not reacting to her dead friends.
"No, I don't know any of them…but still…" she replied clenching her fists.
"Relax, I'll wait for Adam to get us out," I said trying to calm her down.
"How am I supposed to relax in a stomach filled with dead people!" I heard her throwing up somewhere again.
Once she was done I walked over to her and placed a hand on her shoulder, "It'll be fine, don't worry about it." in the most uncomfortable voice imaginable.
She didn't reply for a bit, "You're shit at comforting people…" she laughed slightly.
"Yeah, I used to get that a lot…" I replied.
"I could usually get us out with magic, but I'm too low on mana right now," I replied.
"Is that why you were throwing up blood earlier?" she asked.
"Yeah, it's weird - I don't know how my throat and mana are connected but hey." I shrugged.
A bit of silence passed, "Sorry about snapping your wrist earlier." Kate said apologetically.
"Don't worry about it, I healed myself up," I replied.
I looked over to her seeing that her hand was bleeding, "Speaking of, I can probably still heal your hand with the mana I have." I offered,
"Don't worry about it, this place is gross enough as it is without your puking blood everywhere…" she replied.
I suddenly got an idea, what if I suck the mana out of the monster itself!
I created the magic circle from before and made the monster itself my target, I felt the stream of mana coming from the creature as it began to shake, with my other hand I create a weak ice spell freezing the stomach acid allowing Kate and I to walk over to the massive hole that now appeared in the other of the creature, it turns out that without the mana the creature not only can't regenerate but it also just falls apart.
Kate and I managed to get out of the monster, falling onto the dead grass outside,
"We're actually alive!" she exclaimed.
"Yeah…I'm surprised too…" I replied.
"Well…welcome to the new world…" I said unable to hold back a sadistic laugh as I saw Adam run over to us seemingly just as exhausted.
"Oh, hey Adam, you look pretty tired…" I commented seeing him literally look like he was about to cry.
"Shit, you two are still alive!" Adam exclaimed.
"Yeah…it's weird, right?" I asked.
I felt a slap to the face from my side, it was Kate, "That's for kicking me earlier…" she sighed before standing up,
"So violent…" I said before turning to Adam,
"I hope you have the teleportation ring," I said looking at Adam,
"I think I do…why?" He asked.
I lifted my hand revealing my ring, "Because otherwise, you're walking alone…" I said using the ring to teleport home, Adam didn't appear for another few hours, eventually, he stumbled back into the house, ignoring the note attached to the door and falling right into bed.
I slept through most of the next day, Adam didn't even wake up until really late in the night, finding that Abe was in fact still sleeping on his couch.
Late that night Adam was sitting on his Armchair drinking another experimental tea when Darthold popped his bearded head in through the open door, "I've come to return the dryads and pick up Abe!" Darthold announced as he grabbed a hold of the still sleeping Abe and dropped the two dryads off near the door.
"You realise he was sleeping here for like two days straight?" Adam asked.
"Abe's Abe." Darthold shrugged.
Adam turned his attention to the Dryads.
"How was it?" Adam asked looking at the two dryads, they wore different clothing than usual, they had fur coats.
"It was fun!" Exclaimed the smallest dryad, he was wearing a fur tunic.
"Yep, we went down to the stream and we hunted some bears and then we had fun at the camp." The oldest dryad elaborated, she too had new clothes, a plain fur dress.
Adam ignored the part about hunting bears.
"Sounds like fun, nameless kid and I were off fighting monsters," Adam said looking as if he was waiting for praise.
"Oh! Cool!" said the tallest dryad.
"I know right! Anyway - do you guys want something to drink or?..." Adam asked.
"Nah, I should get going. I'll see you tomorrow." Darthold said as he waved back to the dryads.
"How about you guys?" Adam asked. This is when he realised he had no idea what they're called.
The two dryads looked at each other for a second before shrugging, "We're fine, thanks." he turned to leave,
"Hey, mind if I ask you guys something?" Adam asked the dryads turned back waiting for the question.
"What are your names?" Adam asked, he felt really bad for having to ask, he assumed they'd be offended.
"Oh, that's right we never got a chance to introduce ourselves!" Said the older dryad.
"I'm Cloe, and this is Al," the oldest dryad said pointing to her brother.
"Cloe and Al, alright. Thanks." Adam said standing up and bringing his mug to the sink.
"Good night~," the smaller dryad said waving back towards the house before accompanying the now oldest dryad back to the forest. Adam was shocked by this for a second but he returned the gesture, "Yeah, you too." knowing they made it back alright, and knowing he can close his door now that Abe was gone, Adam fell asleep on the couch.
The next morning after the short lesson of the language Adam went outside to water his plants only to find that they are all dead.
"I bet it was that damn Lily!" Adam complained to himself.
"Don't blame me I didn't touch your plants…except for the spring flowers I guess," Lily replied.
"A; why are you here, B; then why are they dead?" Adam replied.
"I guess it's because of the plant disease spreading around," Lily replied.
"You didn't even bother answering A… wait what disease?" Adam asked.
"I do a decent bit of travelling for work reasons, and all across the world, plants are rotting and no new seeds grow… there are some exceptions but even the grass is looking dry." Lily said pointing and the lime-yellow grass.
"I see… that's pretty bad. I'd expect mass starvation if the crops fail…" Adam commented.
"Don't worry about it, the wizard's court is working on a cure," Lily replied.
"The wizard's court?" Adam asked - his eyes narrowed in suspicion.
"Mm-hm, they even called for a mass collection of crops to make a cure," Lily added.
"I see how it is, so they gave up already," Adam said nervously.
"What do you mean?" Lily looked at him concerned and confused.
"I know the wizard court well, they don't give a single shit about the commoners, they're collecting food for the famine that's about to happen if the wizards from there have given up, then this is a real catastrophe…" Adam explained.
"Wait, we don't know that for sure!" Lily argued.
"...yeah… I guess you're right…maybe things changed." Adam said with a sigh.
"...are you alright?" Lily asked - this was not the side of Adam she usually sees.
"Y-yeah, I'm just pissed that my flowers died… I'll go drink some fake tea…" Adam said as he turned to go indoors, "Oh, and thanks, Lily, for letting me know." Adam said as he stepped inside the house and closed the door.
For a second Lily though Adam was being nice before she heard the door lock.
Adam sat slumped on the couch, he wouldn't expect Lily to know this since she isn't from earth… but Adam knew no disease that could kill all types of plants around the entire world, not to mention how fast it happened… no this had to be the work of some magician…or perhaps a wizard?
"Are you alright man?" I asked - "I'm starting to feel that that's all I say nowadays…"
"Y-yeah. of course it is, why wouldn't it be?" Adam replied in a panicked voice.
"In that case, mind getting off me?" I asked as Adam jumped off the couch realizing I was sitting there this whole time.
"Sorry, man!" Adam apologized quickly.
"Nah, it's all good. I didn't need my ribs anyway." I replied sarcastically sitting up.
"That aside, I'm pretty sure something is wrong," I added.
Adam let out a long sigh, "Yeah…you're right, according to Lily all plants around the world are allegedly dying… the current explanation the public is told is that it's a disease…" Adam explained.
I'm no scientist, but with the years I spent in front of the TV watching nature documentaries, science shows and the sheer amount of hospital-based shows I had a decent idea of the abilities of diseases.
"Can a disease spread everywhere? Surely different types of plants would be resistant to different stuff…" I asked Adam only nodded.
"I forgot a decent amount by now, but I used to be a professor back on earth, I taught microbiology," Adam said.
"Show-off…" I grunted to myself.
"That's not what I mean, no pathogen can target all plants, not to mention that the idea that it would have spread everywhere already is crazy…" Adam's voice became more panicked as he spoke.
"So do you think it's magic?" I asked - I felt I knew the answer but even if I was correct, would there be anything we could do?
"I'm almost certain, it must be some sort of instant death curse targeting plants, but this kind of spell would require an ungodly amount of mana, the only place in the world I can think of that could have that much… is the wizard court." Adam explained.
"Is that like a mage guild?" I asked.
"Not exactly… a mage is a person who practices magic as a profession, for example, court mages, army mages and mercenaries, although a man selling balloons made from mana is still technically a mage as well." Adam explained.
"So what is a wizard?" I asked.
"A wizard is just a title, it's anyone who is a member of the wizard court, essentially an organization which aims to collect skilled mages from around the world, or so they'd have you believe… A good few times they used their ever-expanding power to pressure the governments around the world to act as they wish, they tend to stay out of most of the world's troubles luckily…" Adam's tone was becoming irritated.
"In that case, is the disease our problem?" I asked,
Adam didn't reply for a while.
"What I'm asking is, are you going to investigate it, we're not some sort of heroes and we have no obligation to go do anything for this world," I explained my point of view.
"I guess that's right… We don't have to act…" Adam said, he seemed distant…
"Actually… no… I have people in this world I care for, Cloe, Al, Darthold and all the people at the Camp." from the distance Adam heard a loud "AHEM"
Adam sighed, "And I guess I have acquaintances like Lily too…"
"That's so cold…" the distant voice of Lily complained.
"So, I guess what I'm saying is that you may not have obligations in this world, but I do," Adam said with a satisfied smile.
"YES, I pulled off the cool speech!" He thought to himself.
There were a few seconds of silence before anybody spoke up.
"Man, Lily's right, how cold. I have friends here - like I think me and that one guy from the bandits with the glasses really hit it off." I said sarcastically.
"Plus I'd hate to have the dryads hurt… That old man carried me around for a bit so I guess I owe him something in return…" I continued naming off people.
"But seriously, all I was asking is if you're going to take action, and I guess I have my answer," I said with a shrug.
Adam smirked, "Yeah, sorry for thinking you're such a loner…"
"So what's the plan?" I asked,
"I guess we should train a bit, I can't be all sore for two days after every bit of trouble we could run into!" Adam replied.
"Right, I guess I should train my magic," I said getting up and getting ready to leave.
Adam grabbed me by the collar, "Oh no you don't! We won't have Darthold to carry you around everywhere, so you'll need to get in shape too, you lazy ass."
"That's too cruel, man." I cried and I tried to break free of his iron grip.
"I am a proud member of the couch potato community and this is abuse!" I added.
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Check out a tts reading of chapter 1 and potentially more in the future! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xorRJDGAQk&feature=youtu.be