Deep inside a forest, with yellow fireflies that illuminated the surrounding bushes filled with green lush grass, the starry sky illuminated by stars. A cold and breezy night, it was the lost team's first night in this unknown world, but even if it's their first, Sen pushed his teammates will to gather information about this world, starting if monsters exist on this world.
Horse feet thumping rapidly on the dirt road, no, three beats of horses galloping, but there were more than one horse, there were three brown colored horses galloping with four young people wearing black school uniform, they were riding on it. Their heads rushed down and their feet barely stabilizing their balance on their horse, because they didn't have the foot stand on their horse. On the middle was Sen with his magically forged katana on his back, on his right is Tamotsu Suzuki equipped with a small wooden circle shield with it's edges and center covered with steel, and a silver sword that resembles a European double sided sword, on Sen's left is Ryuu and Kei sharing the same horse. Ryuu carried the same recurved bow and leather quiver , where he got on a corpse of a goblin, Kei carried nothing but a platinum white shoulder bag that contained notebooks. They were running away from something, then they heard roar of a monster resonated deep into their backs, causing nearby birds to chirp, flying away alongside falling leaves that fell due to the birds sudden takeoff.
Tamotsu the man with a good body build calmly asked Sen, "Team leader, fight or flight?".
Sen responds, "Eh? Aren't we doing one already?"
A white haired boy with his right left eye covered with an oversized bangs yelled, "You really got the nerve to joke right now! We're already getting chased by three-"
His groin got meshed by an orange haired girl, she said "Ryuu! Stop complaining and look forward!" it was Kei.
"Why run if we're going to die anyway…." pathetically replied by the white haired boy, it was Ryuu.
Kei replied again with a psychopathic tone, "Just so you know I'm riding you, if you get anymore pathetic than now, I swear I'll use that 'dong' to maneuver our ass outa here, you scum."
"Damn it! There's no time for jokes right now! If you want to ride someone else go with Tam!", he exclaimed
Kei and Tamotsu replied hastily, "Phhraasssiinngg", they said.
"Ryuu….I'm expecting character development to you in a week-des", said by Sen without batting an eye to Ryuu
Ryuu exclaimed again, "We look like noobs running away from a level 1 monster, this is embarrassing…"
Sen finally made his choice thus peeks at his back and saw three humanoid monsters running towards them in an aggressive manner. They were a humanoid wooden creature that resembles Groot from The Guardians of the Galaxy. It had white roots that strapped itself to it's body and arms. It's eyes glowed dark green with black on it's side. It's running behavior resembled the ninja run from Naruto, it's hands to it's back and it's back tilted forward. It's roots getting swayed by the wind, and they seem to possess superhuman strength with the ability to run equally to a horse, as observed by the squad the 'Plantera's, named by Sen can still catch up to a horse running at 30kp/h.
Kei's long hair was being blown by the wind, on her hand below her waist is a thick red notebook that contained rough sketches of the monsters they've encountered and took notes respectively, on her notebook is a sketch of the Plantera monster full body viewed at different angles and closed the notebook's strap, and hid her notebook on her small pouch. Kei then leans her forehead forward to Ryuu's back,"What are you talking about, Ryuu-kun? Isn't this fun and exciting?"
"Said by the one who sure did took her 'sweet' time to just draw and write, where we boys risked our lives just to tease off a 10-meter sized plant monster!" replied by Ryuu angrily.
"Oi, oi! I may have took my 'sweet' time to that monster but you have no idea how hard it was to illustrate something that movvy!" replied by Kei as she leaned her forehead on Ryuu's back.
"Why didn't you just your phone camera then?!" Ryuu replied
Kei stares with silence, she replied with a high tone, "I do not know nor care if you're stupid or not but, the lightning was too 'low' and I can't even get a clear picture of it!"
"Hoho! What a 'low' reason you got there ya woman!" said by Ryuu sarcastically
Kei said, "Ho? Shut up you failed-albinistic-closet pervert-"
"Go apologize to those CRISPr babies you woman!" Interrupted by Ryuu
Sen's voice overlapped with Ryuu saying, "Noisy lovebirds". He stared up ahead the dirt with a cold dead eye fish stare.
"Coming from you!" Said by Ryuu and Kei.
Tamotsu's face palmed himself, and uttered, "We seriously look like literal noobs… I wonder how we'll look like to other Earth-worlders on this world.."
Sen mutters as he raises the rope that connected to the horse's mouth and tried to hid his face behind it and said, "shit…As an acting leader, I feel guilty…"
Ryuu still silently mutters to himself saying "embarrassing…cringe… mortifying… I'm stuck with a bad teammate…give me back my Asian teammates"
"We're Asian too, dummy!" said by Kei as she butts her head to Ryuu's back.
The three beast Plantera then roared again, each Plantera formed a javelin, a throwing spear on it's arms, it does so by turning their arm into a needle like sharply pointed spear and grows another arm that held the spear, and prepared to throw it towards the group.
"Kei! What was the chant line for that hexagonal green shield thing?" yelled by Tamotsu
Kei stiffly opens her pouch on her hips, and clumsily grabbed her red notebook, making Tamotsu shriek in worry.
"Heya! Repeat after me!" yelled by Kei as she points upwards with her hands, causing Tamotsu to lose his composure thus chokes in worry.
"Stop it!-" said by Tamotsu, Kei then quickly replied, "You don't need the phrase?"
Tamotsu's voice shrinks and yelled "Just give me the chant already!".
Kei quickly turns the pages back and forth on her notebook and mutters the phrases in it, "ummmm… pfftt… ah! This was our group pic last year!" she said as she points into a group picture of her classmates in black winter uniform.
"Shield!" randomly chanted by Tamotsu. He aimed his left hand to the three Planteras, and a lime colored transparent circle shaped shield appears out of nowhere, banging itself onto the Plantera. Then another one appears and banged itself to the second Plantera, then another one banged again on the last Plantera.
They pulled their horses's brindle that connected to their horse, putting a halt into the horses. Kei laid her left arm to Ryuu's back because to nausea and rested her side of her head to it, and said "Sorry, I didn't add that spell to the guidebook".
Ryuu drops the controlling rope that connected to his horse and quickly took Kei's red notebook and slammed a page open on the notebook, he said to Tamotsu
"We never did, because!"
"We never even recorded one, not any spells related to that Shield thing…". Ryuu held the red notebook on it's middle side, showing it's two pages, but it was blank, there was none written on it except the word 'Spells'. He lowers the notebook and gave it back to Kei. "The only spells we know of, is the one syllable chant, probably the only basics of Magic, like 'Fire'", said by Ryuu
Tamotsu sighed as he detaches from the horse "Jeez. But, it's weird, it felt like I knew there was something… My instincts just knew." Tamotsu stares at his palm, he sighed and shook his two hands, relieving it.
"Yeah. We're even awfully familiar of horse riding." Said by Sen as he looks into the yellow starry sky
"I had prior knowledge in these types of things, but I never used it. But now, we're doing it in a breeze." Sen scratches the neck of his brown horse, making the horse breathe with comfort.
"Even the villagers are letting us do it, lending us these horses which takes probably takes a year to breed. Which are expensive." Sen gruntingly pushed his horse's head, and gently but naïvely kicks the horse in the stomach.
"So, temp leader? What do you think?" said by Kei as she pushes her lower back, stretching it.
"This world is too real to be real. The villagers had pure facial expressions, their Japanese writings,
I can't say for sure, but I don't think this world is a traditional anime plot 'alternate dimension' or 'summon into a new world scenario'" said by Sen as his horse slowly walks it's way towards the dead plantera.
Kei reaches her feet with her hands in an attempt to deal with the soreness, she asked him saying, "I do believe you, but I'm having mixed feelings about that". She then pushes her butt inwards to her hips to ease up with the soreness caused by horse riding and followed, "Agh…I can't help but overthink about the anxiety this world caused us. Even if we we're in a virtual world, then that'd means we were abducted and forced to participate in this experiment."
"A psychological experiment…." Muttered by Ryuu
"And if we we're not, if it's the other way around, err…" Kei touched her lips with her index finger, mumbling "mmmm" and said, "Then if we're in a real world, we die then we decompose".
"Ha ha ha ha eh eh… eh…-" mockingly laughed by Ryuu, he then follows, "You didn't have to make it sound like that!" he replied, causing Sen who kneeled into the Plantera corpse to shiver in fear into his surroundings, he then reverts by taking a deep breathe and poked his glasses back to it's original position.
Sen poked the corpse with his scabbard, and observed it's root whither black and thinning, some thinned too much and disappeared, some didn't. He then tries to flip over the eyeholes of the wooden bark like skull of the Plantera that looked similar to Groot in GOTG. His tip of the sword went inside the eyehole, he then breathed sharply and said in a moderate tone, "Why are we in a European themed village… instead of a Japanese one if they speak Japanese?"
"Haha! It seems that someone here has been observing our surroundings! For the first time!" yelled by Kei, causing Sen to sigh with grief.
"I wouldn't say it's European though" said by Tamotsu
"We're more or less inside a computer. With the emergence of Universal Basic Income or UBI and Quantum Supremacy in the 2030's, CRISPr, the DNA manipulating tool almost complete, not to mention 6th Generation Jet Fighters, SpaceX's Starship's maiden flight… And! The old, 2024 Artemis Missions which we humans landed on the moon for the second time… and also the Moon Laboratory which provided thousands of scientific data, what else should the government research for?" asked by Sen
"Uhhh…. Artificial Intelligence?" said by Ryuu Tachibana.
Sen sighs with silence, he then stands up and stabbed the dead Plantera again on the head, destroying it's skull and walked towards the other dead Plantera as he leads his horse with a leash on his hands. He then follows, "You guys must already know that. It's common knowledge. We're inside a computer, well, maybe a Quantum computer of sorts..." said by him as he looked into the starry sky.
'Computers are binary, 1s and 0s. But Quantum Computers uses qubits, which can be either 1, or 0, or both. It took me two days of deep thought with cramped up gaming playstyle to understand that, well, why would a 9th grade student study that deep inside of research? I did, but I didn't quite understand it's significance that time.'
'Quantum Computers, using superpositioning of qubits to compute, or what I still remember. My memory of it is vaque, but I know those things can interact with parallel universes.'
'What if, those Quantum Research caused this? What if we we're transported…. No.. guinea pigs?''
'A psychological experiment?'
He placed his hands on his chest collarbone out ot fear and anxiety. He looked back and saw three persons lighting up the bushes around them with their smartphones's flashlight. He turns his view back the Plantera corpse, he grabbed his phone with his left hand on his black school pants and swiped it upwards with his left thumb, and flashed a light unto the interior of the Plantera and saw black, there was black moss that covered the interior of the wooden skull. It's eyes was smaller than the human eye, but the eyeholes was big even a grip sized hand can fit in. The Plantera was relatively higher than the average human being, being 5"11 at most. It's eyes though, was only connected to the interior by a stick like root, the moment Sen saw it he breathed sharply out of fear.
'Quantum computers should be common knowledge, but… why… why none of them are talking about those things?!'
He then silently mutters to himself, 'This game is crap! There's no loot system!"
He then looks again inside the wooden skull of the Plantera, and observed it more carefully.
"What the?....", he said
"Hey Sen-kun, can you do it?" said by the voice in his back, it was Kei.
"I'm the one who dragged you three on this expedition, I can't risk you three on this examination, that's why I'm doing this" firmly said by Sen
"wooo? Well…. You always wanted to be sent into another world, do you Sen-kun?" said by Kei
Well, there goes. I can't even look her into the eye.
" My father could be involved in this, knowing his past, someone could already tell that I'm the reason why were here. Also…" Sen lowered his head and stared into the creepy wooden skull of the Plantera that looked like Groot that's it's white roots slowly turns to dust before settling down at the dirt on his feet.
'Yeah, I always wanted to be sent to another world, a fantasy one where I could be a merc, alchemist, soldier, or a noble, or perhaps a bandit, or maybe someone on a Chivalric order of Mages.'
Kei she pans her flashlight to Sen, as she walks she said to him, "You practiced martial arts back then, didn't you?"
I suddenly remembered the sparring matches I did with this woman. Some are still blurry, but I know she taught me practiced Krav Maga.
"The dream of experiencing a fantasy world, huh. Seems you're still holding onto that humanity of yours, Sen-kun"
"If this world is real, live because you have the potential to be the best asset for our team. We're in an unknown fantasy world, with creepy monsters and such, who knows when we will run into a SAO level crazy game developer or perhaps a dragon?"
"With Tamotsu's sport seasoned mind and Mr. White Hair Ryuu's gaming mindset, combined with your anime otaku mindset, you three probably might become a great…figure"
Ryuu mutters silently, "Who the hell are you calling White Hair?"
Sen looked back to Kei and saw her sitting in a tuck position, her orange long hair that ran towards her chest. She seemed to have changed her school skirts into her faded denim pants. Her body composed of a mild build. Sen said to her, "Shut up you BL obsessed woman."
"Gah! Hoh." Exclaimed by Kei as she smirks and did a smug expression to Sen.
"Well, when you knew that you were on this world, your face looked like you resented your father and blamed yourself. Right now, you're having second thoughts on examining that thing. Not to mention, if that thing still brea-". She stared at the dead Plantera with a confused expression, and followed "…..alive, you would be literally a human skewer. Hehehe."
Sen then looked to Plantera corpse and chanted, "Fire Element, Materialize"
A fire magically appeared on Sen's right, hovering on it but there was no magic circle, suspiciously. Sen then raised his hand into the air, making his hand go above the fire particle and plunged the fire to the wooden eyehole of the Plantera, slowly burning it on it's insides.
"Kill confirmed-" said by Sen
"-I didn't know!-that we can use different words to register that magic phenomena!" replied by Kei in an quick manner
"RPG like world, huh?" said by Sen. He sighs then stood up and looked to Kei and said, "I guess I should thank you for telling me that, Kei."
"Ohh?? Eh-eh? Lemme hear it! Sen-kun!" said by Kei with a smug face that sat in a tucking position, waiting for an attention and worshipping.
"As if." Replied by Sen.
Sen halted walking, he gripped his katana, and said to Kei slowly. "Hey Kei.."
"Nani, nani? Are you going to praise me more?", she said as her hands formed a triangle form.
"You knew that these things can skewer me anytime, right?", asked by Sen
"Y…y-yeah…", Kei stuttered as she replies
"You studied college level biology and chemistry back then, didn't you?", followed by Sen. The social atmosphere grew thicker around the two, Kei stared at Sen without batting an eye away.
"Yeah?", Kei replied.
Sen's left palm rested onto the handle of the katana, and Sen's eye turns dead as he stares at Kei. His glasses focal point focuses at Kei.
"I found mushrooms in it. It's made of wood, and if judged from it's economic significance, mushrooms combined with predatory powers can be a population regulator. You saw… the spores these things released as it chased after us didn't you?"
"Yare, yare.", muttered by Tamotsu, he slowly walks back away from Kei. Ryuu looks and checks the surroundings with his vision, looking for a clear exit point.
"I know the significance of mushrooms for the environment…. But! I didn't mean to make you a test subject if those things can harm you or not! Trust me! We knew each other for 3 years, I could never do that to you, ever!" exclaimed by Kei as her hands waved from her chest level.
"Mushrooms, tree exterior. Shape shifting. An anomaly. Who knows if this world has a different periodic table than ours."
"But it's too late if it's real." Said by Sen.
"Huh?", asked by Kei.
"Why are these things humanoid instead of a mushroom? Why bipedal instead of four legs? It can run faster if it has four legs. Why mushrooms and roots are covering the exterior interior of them?", asked firmly by Sen
"…. Them?..... Are you saying those things… are humans?" said by Kei with a terrified voice.
"If these things are infectious, It's already too late."
"Stop playing ignorant. You were the one that asked the villagers about these things, you ought to know something." Firmly said by Sen without batting an eye again. Breathing calm, he stared right into Kei.
"Sen-kun, you can still see me, right?" asked by Kei
"I have myopia." Said by Sen
Ryuu replied, "That's the impossible. I have albinism but when I saw the sun at dawn, my skin wasn't harmed either. But…"
"You're used to that thing, Ryuu. Also, there's no way we're in a real world. Magic does not exist, this is reality!" exclaimed by Tamotsu
"You just heard that Sen's katana was formed under 30 minutes, isn't that enough for magic?" said by Ryuu
Tamotsu followed again, "You're being irrational! Think about it! We're inside a virtual reality game! There's no way we got magically transported into a-"
Kei left and right looks at the two arguing people. And mutters, "It can't be…"
Ryuu replied furiously, "You're being too rational! If we got transported into another world, their periodic table might be different than ours and they could have an element unknown to us! That might explain the magic phenomena!"
Tamotsu replied again, "Oh! You just said the sun doesn't affect you as much back on home, right!?"
Ryuu replied in silence. Sen on his mind thought, 'Ryuu should be the logical one here, while Tamotsu supposed to be the optimistic and composed leader. These two…. Seems to have changed places…'
Tamotsu followed, "Are you perhaps saying that your skin changed composition that's why the sun doesn't affect you as much on Earth? You stupid?"
'Tamotsu is denying the conclusion that this world is real. Meanwhile Ryuu…. You can't be simping for Kei…'
Ryuu replied, "I'm just presenting a possible conclusion!". Ryuu then followed with a sincere voice, "Don't tell….me you're going mental about that?"
"Shut up", muttered by Kei. She tucked herself onto the ground with her arms warped around her legs. She said as she plunged her face to her lap, her voice muffled sayingg "The villagers didn't mention anything about those monsters turning people into themselves."
She then mutters words to Sen without looking to his eye, her eyes dead locked into the grass she sat on, saying "I'm sorry, Sen-kun."
"I'm sorry… for my misbehavior and for yelling to you Ryuu…" said by Tamotsu as he looked at him in the eye. Ryuu sighs and placed his hands into his hips and said, "Let's go home and take some rest. The amount of stress here is too high, it's better…. If we continue Intel gathering tomorrow."
Kei shivers with the cold, and silently chants, "Self-Heal". A green circle appears on her right hand at the size of her collarbone, the circle dimly illuminates the forest with green light. She touches the disk on it's edge and felt the movement and roughness of the small words embedded on the disk's sides. There were also a circle pathway that circulated along the center of the disk with an empty area on it's inner center. Kei grabs the magic circle, the green disk, grabbing the attention of the three boys. She grabs it with her two hands on it's sides and aimed the empty circle on her abdomen, she tried to put her palm behind the near transparent circle, yet it didn't work. "Healing magic has no effect", muttered by Kei as she shivered in her black-colored winter uniform.
The green colored circle moved it's insides like gears in motion, each compartment with it's own circular lines moving counter clockwise on the outer lining, and clockwise to the inner circular lining. The lines were spaced with clear, translucent light green glass like material that allowed Kei to see pass through. She slowly uttered "A magic circle with definite design, so this is magic"
Tamotsu sighed, itching his head, rubbing it, he then said with a firm stare, "Right…. Panicking won't help us in this issue. Let's go home, shall we, Captain?"
The boy with the katana stood up, groaning away from the fatigue caused by his stress and prolong improper sitting. He proceeded to walk towards the three. As he walks nearer the white haired albino kid, Ryuu, Ryuu touched his sword with his middle finger and ring finger and said, "We don't know this world. Fungal infection can happen to you, judging from those wooden corpse you examined, and possibly..- "
Sen stopped and continued to look forward, ignoring Ryuu, he felt the rope that connected towards the brindle of his borrowed horse, he then wrapped the rawhide rope that he used to lead his horse. He walks near Ryuu's sides making him go silent, he smiles with a blink and turns his head to Ryuu, he said to him with a killer smile, "Kill me if I turn to a threat, Ryuu-kun."
The two exchanged a gaze to each other, with Ryuu showing a blank face, his left side of his eye covered with oversized bangs, his right eye shown a complete gaze that relentlessly went to Sen's blurry eyes. Sen on the other hand, exhibited a tiny blank smile to Ryuu, he then placed his right hand on the horse's saddle and jumped into it.
Ryuu sighed as he uttered, "Is that a permission or an order?"
Sen replied without looking to the three, "I took you three on this recon task, so this is my responsibility. I'm the one to blame If one of you dies, so I'd choose to die rather than letting someone on my party to die, because of me." He stares at the three as he uttered his last words before departing
Ryuu replied, "I'll make it quick", as he sighed and junped his right leg towards his borrowed horse, following Sen back to the village.
"We are clearly inside a computer, that's the end of the discussion." Said by Tamotsu before jumping into his saddle. He raised his hands to Kei and pulled her towards his saddle and departed.
"Did I just forget about Kei?" said by Ryuu. "Idiot." Muttered by Kei. She hangs her shoulder bag to Tamotsu's shoulder to hips, and hanged her arms into it, preventing her to fall of from the horse.
As the three gallops their horses into the cold night, the young Sen mutters words as they made their path back to the village which they soon will call home, he gently said with the duality of a tone, as they proceeded upon the forest they galloped across the green plains they woke up from, to the afar corpse of a resting adventurer :
"The amount of ignorance we have upon this unknown world is so terrifying to know, and in the same time, I get excited to what's know what's beyond. Nevertheless, It was unexpected, but we maybe the only 21st century humans on this world. The amount of knowledge we have, is godlike compared to this medieval people."
"Still, I still, believe, with a faint hope, I say, we are inside a computer"
The boy held his hand to his chest, where his heart is located, and felt his own heartbeat, with that smile he shown to his comrade, It was when he bottled his faceless expression
"There is no need to show distress in times like these, it would only slow one's reach of help and be pathetic to others. Or so, what my father taught me."
"But still, I want to joke up with these things, I want to do it but, the atmosphere behind me is too tense. It's been three hours since we've arrived here and everyone's looking for answers."
"Just like when that bookworm Rio managed to get information about magic, I also need to do my own part. " The boy looked to his right palm, behind his calm dead eye gaze, behind that pair of glasses is someone who is anxious of the future, and what awaits them, and the same time, excited.
The monsters he named into Plantera came unto his mind, he thought to himself, "Will I turn into those monsters?"
"Everyone's busy finding answers, amidst this light of ignorance", he thought to himself. He quickly turns left and right, checking upon Ryuu and Tamotsu. He stares at the starry sky, and saw the moon, it was white, but it felt…."
Different.