Rondo, Kartosh - 9:03
"Can you take me to the General Guild?"
It was a surprising request, coming from a schoolmate Harry just met a few minutes ago.
'Not the Information Help Center, but the Guild?'
Backtracking a little bit, the reason for their encounter was quite peculiar, so to speak.
It was just a usual morning just like any other for Harry.
He woke up, did some exercise, tended to his personal hygiene, had breakfast, followed by some self-training and then it's personal business onward, depending on the day.
Usually, he even had part-time jobs to go to, but today was special!
It was finally time for him to attend the famous Astrea Academy, which he somehow landed a seat in!
Him! A kid from a poor family!
While to the majority of students of high-end backgrounds, this place only existed as a chance to hone their skills even further as they formed even more connections for their future careers, it is a life-changer to the likes of Harry.
As long as he shows good results, he can instantly turn his whole family's situation around with recruitment from guilds. It is something nowhere else to be found but the academy.
His household was extremely elated at this news and supported him all the way.
At first, he hesitated because they were struggling a lot even with his help.
Nevertheless, since the school promised him a special financial program days later as he sent a letter explaining his circumstances, he decided to clench his teeth and claim the opportunity.
Just like every day, he was jogging around the deserted neighborhood but in his new uniform, partly because he wants to get used to moving around with them.
He also regarded this area as a playground/experimental ground from his early childhood, so there was almost no problem with roaming around it, not for him anyways.
There was a special reason why such areas were deserted, so unless there was a big explosion that decimated everything on a large scale, no one would bat an eye to the happenings around these places.
It was somewhat saddening that such an empire left it undealt, but how could he complain when he has such a huge and free experiment ground.
That was when he came upon four well-known hooligans.
They were not strong per se, since he could beat them without breaking a sweat, but they were indeed annoying troublemakers who would target the weak from the slums - the same place he was from, every chance they got.
Just as he thought it was time to teach them a lesson again, they ran past him in such bad postures that he thought they could trip and fall anytime.
The most surprising part, nonetheless, was their face painted in a never-seen-before dread.
He could only assume they finally messed with the wrong person. Though they had been around for such a long time unfearful of anything, so he got curious about who it was and jog onward.
From the direction they ran from was the most astonishing encounter he'd had all year - a schoolmate!
He had never expected to meet one in such a place, especially when he heard that around 95% or more of his peers and seniors were some sort of young masters and ladies.
A fateful encounter, one could say, considering he had never met one in the area he spent almost all his life around.
Obviously, he couldn't contain his excitement and ran up to the boy immediately.
Jun, the name of the peer he just met, was certainly an oddball.
Jun's face, consisting of messy brown hair and a face littered with scars, made him instantly consider the boy his kind.
He must've been through a rough life too, Harry thought.
Jun was also tall, surpassing him by a head. It has been some time since he met someone taller than him, so his heart felt bizzare yet refreshing.
The most distinguished feature would be his listless eyes. A selfish spiraling shade of grey, one that brought forward discomfort the longer he stared.
Their brief interactions following the encounter were also odd.
It's as if the estranged boy just fell from the sky, asking questions that appear to be testing his own sense of reality.
Harry was baffled, but interested, nonetheless.
If Jun really fell from the sky, he would definitely be the goldmine that struck Harry, or at least he thought so.
Determined to keep Jun around, Harry came to a conclusion that it would be best to offer him help without too much questioning.
"Sure. It's a bit far from here, but I could take you directly there by foot."
Thankfully, Jun approved the idea a brief nod.
What better way to gain other's trust than good will?
***
Rondo, Kartosh - 9:10
Another world.
It wasn't Jun's first time in one, but it was indeed a first for him to be forcefully put in one.
At this point, nevertheless, that was still a big assumption above anything.
He was the one who remembers the name Rondo being exclusive to Melheim after all, not the world.
Moreover, it's been quite some time since he's been to Kartosh, enough to make him forget how long it was since his last.
The same could be said for reading news as they were filled with politics, which he had grown tired of long ago.
Because of that, he deemed it was pretentious to claim he knew his facts before fact-checking, especially in such a time when everything moved along so fast.
Conversely, this problem could have easily been solved had he not left his phone back in his room at the inn.
A truly unfortunate situation.
On the other hand, while being teleported via magic formation or even skill to Kartosh was more feasible as an answer, it was something he would never fall for under normal circumstances.
Why is this, you ask?
Due to the annoyance caused by many encounters against obstacles that utilize space magic and alike, he designed and attached an [Anchor] to his soul.
This [Anchor] is akin to a sealing formation, and while it's in effect, the affected is "bound in place" with little exception.
Undoubtedly, the number of exceptions can be counted on one finger, with one being his intentional design choice.
It didn't help that the anchor stayed intact for as long as he remembered, and there was just a tiny time frame he missed.
This left the scale to tip a little toward the second flaw, which is if it wasn't the user who was "moved" but the world itself.
'This is a bit troubling, isn't it?'
"You look uneasy? Is there something I can help?"
Bringing him back to reality was Harry, who was leading him through the deserted streets at his request.
For whatever reason, Harry was disregarding whatever untrustworthy points of him to offer him a hand.
Jun was especially sure he had seen doubts in Harry's eyes then, so Harry helping him is definitely something beyond being "overly friendly".
However, he didn't care about that.
Ulterior motives are, more often than not, always present in interactions between humans anyway.
Things like 'Do I need a reason to help?' and such are just fueled by something extremely ambiguous, in any cases.
The only thing that troubles him would be the fact that he's lazy to deal with problems nowadays.
"No, it's nothing."
He shook his head, dismissing his concern regarding what brought him here.
The result was unchangable either way, and he could only fix things around by searching up information at the General Guild.
As to why he didn't ask for the Information Help Center, it was because they could only answer questions regarding info about the capital and the empire as a whole.
To summarize, the range of info was too limited for his needs.
"Is that so? Tell me if you need anything, OK?"
Seeing Harry's smile, he could only hope that he wouldn't be met by hurdles anytime soon.
***
Rondo, Kartosh - 9:20
TBC, short for The Big Three Capitals, refers to the 3 cornerstones, or more specifically, the 3 existing dominant empires/nations of the 4 regions excluding The Wild West.
According to Jun's knowledge, Kartosh belongs to the Innovative South region, famous for its advancement in Ether technologies.
Basically, not much he knew has really changed about Kartosh, except for deserted areas that spread throughout its cities' outskirts and the existence of large-scale slums.
For as far as his memories went back, they were having lots of success with solving these problems by providing job trainings and opportunities for even the uneducated. Back then, slums and areas that supposedly experienced destruction from Dungeon Breaks were getting renovated with sufficient funds.
One of the last news he read for years were Kartosh being the City of Hope and Dreams, getting praises from experts all over Estella.
'So it's either I'm actually in another world...or that the ambitious projects has failed and the stories were exaggerated.'
The most apparent prove was Rondo, the current capital of Kartosh that he's in:
Many buildings were in shambles, with rubbles building up piles untouched.
Ether in the air was extremely unstable, but not because of a natural phenomenon like Melheim's Rondo. Rather, it seems to be caused by the negligence of the authorities as well as...possibly experiments from the labs.
RUMBLE! CRASH!
Just as Jun and Harry reached an intersection, the ground shook strongly as something seemed to get crushed. The sound appeared to have come from within the confines of a large department store right around the corner.
'Can't say I didn't expect that.'
The reason why Ether regularly gets stabilized within the limits of cities that house residents is that it can cause a rift, a result of multiple violent clashes of concentrated Ether waves.
Until now, it is still unknown which and why it connects to dimensions where all kinds of beings hostile to humanity lived.
"Say, Harry. Was that what I think it is?"
Harry, showing a frightened look, spoke with a shaking voice.
"No way...It has been so long..."
As if that wasn't enough, all the surrounding buildings shook and "growled" in unison, creating a horrendous symphony.
"Run!"