A male with blonde hair held his hand high in the air. He wore golden armor sporting a blue cape that whisked into the air.

"What's the meaning of this? I told you to get healing from this town's Sage. Is that too difficult of a task to do without getting into a fight?"

The pink-haired knight stopped struggling with Yuumi and flashed away, appearing near the golden-armored knight.

"B-but Captain,"

She put on a pouty face.

"It was their fault! They started it!"

He narrows his eyes and grabs her by the throat, lifting her from the ground. She wheezed while holding onto his hand.

"Well, I'm ending it, dammit! We have work to do!"

He threw her to the ground, and she coughed. "Y-yes, sir."

The green-haired male backed away and smiled. "We'll have to play another time."

He jumped into the air and landed near the captain.

The auburn-haired knight put the two blades in her hand together and picked up her blade from the ground as they all merged.

"We aren't done, 'Sword Maiden.'"

She turns her back onto Aiyoma. "Trust me. We'll fight again real soon."

The golden-armored male walked over to Chiyo and bowed.

"As their captain, I'm sorry for the negligence."

He looked onto the ground and picked up the wounded soldier, placing him on his shoulder.

The golden knight draws a circle in the air, and a bag drops into his hand.

It jingles as he hands it to Chiyo. "This should cover all the damage my knights caused. They shouldn't bother you again; I'll make sure they're severely punished."

Chiyo hesitantly takes the bag from the towering knight.

"T-thanks."

He walks over to the group of rogue knights. They all place a hand on the pink-haired knight and flash away, leaving a dust cloud in their original location.

Yuumi stands from the ground holding her arm as her armor dematerializes.

"What the hell just happened?"

Aiyoma runs over to me and helps me up.

"Are you alright?"

I hold my left cheek, still blistering from the pain of the knight's initial punch.

"…I'm fine."

Chiyo dashes to me, and Aiyoma placing her staff in front of us.

"Usha Vin."

I feel a warmth surround my body as the pain from my cheek starts to fade; Aiyoma's cut on her neck disappears.

Aiyoma forces a smile. "… Thanks, Chiyo."

"No problem…"

Yuumi walks over to Aiyoma with a glare.

"The hell was that Aiyoma? I thought knights were supposed to be these 'crusaders for justice'?"

"I… I couldn't…."

Yuumi grabs her by her collar.

"You mean to tell me that I gotta work with those idiots? Don't make me laugh!"

Aiyoma looked to the ground.

Yuumi sighed and released her shirt looking over at me.

"And what're your thoughts on this, huh? Can barely hold your excitement from that ass-kicking we just got?"

I look to my left hand as it trembles. I grab it and walk over to her.

"We got beat. Let it go."

"Let it go? LET IT GO?! WHAT IS THIS FROZEN?!"

She butts into my head. A red liquid starts dripping down the side of my face.

"You fine with those idiots just taking us out and leaving?"

I lean my head back and headbutt her; She stumbles back.

"I NEVER SAID I WAS FINE WITH IT!"

Yuumi holds her head.

"Dammit! You wanna fight?! Let's see how much of a Holy Knight you really are!"

"Fine by me. Someone needs to shut you the hell up."

Chiyo runs between us and holds out her hands.

"I know this is stressful, but please calm down!"

We both look at each other then turn the other way.

I sigh. "We shouldn't be fighting each other. But you're right; we aren't going to let it go."

"Aiyoma,"

I look over to her, and she perks up.

"Those were squires, weren't they."

Her eyes widen. "How did you know…."

Yuumi groans.

"It was obvious. They all had capes the same color as their captain."

"If they're training, that means they're most likely going to participate in the Rite of Passage. If we want to rechallenge them, that's where we need to be."

Yuumi grins and smacks her fist into her palm.

"I wasn't sure about the stupid Rite-thing before, but now I have to join!"

Chiyo puts down her hands. "Let's go back inside; we're starting to draw some looks…."

I turn around, looking at the large group of townspeople overlooking the rigid battle scene.

"Yeah, let's go."

. . .

We make it inside the cathedral. Chiyo bows as we cross into the center of the chapel.

"Thank you for all you did… If I'd known they were going to attack, I would've just healed that knight."

"Naw,"

Yuumi stepped forward.

"Those knights needed to be put in their place. You don't go around giving orders unless your the boss, which they defiantly weren't."

"… I must also apologize on behalf of the knights, as I am one myself."

I turn to face Aiyoma.

"You aren't like them; you don't need to apologize for anything."'

Chiyo raises her staff into the air and holds it near my head. "Let's begin what we started…."

I feel a bit drained, but nothing drastic. Suddenly, a pentagram with the words 'STR, SPD, END, INT, and MP' are shown.

The pentagram shows a large spike towards Endurance while the rest of the spikes were somewhat average, MP being the lowest.

Chiyo opens her palms and uses her index finger and thumbs to enlarge the graph.

"Let me explain. Five attributes define what class best suits a person. The attributes are Strength, Speed, Endurance, Intelligence, and Magic Proficiency. People with high MP are chosen to be mages. High speed usually goes for Archers; Endurance is knights and paladins, so on, so forth."

Chiyo looks at the graph.

"As of right now, your best stat is Endurance, with your lowest being Magic Proficiency. So it's good that you chose to be a knight because nothing else would've worked out as well."

Well, thanks a lot, goddess. I guess I only had one true calling in this world.

"Is there a way to train your attributes?"

"Well, there are a couple. But mostly, all you'd need to do is continue fighting, and they should increase with ease."

Chiyo draws her index finger and thumb apart, and the graph minimizes. A new sheet called "Specials" is shown.

"Hm? What's this?"

She looks at a text written in hieroglyphics.

Aiyoma walks over and glances at the screen.

"I've never seen that writing in my life."

Chiyo looks over at me.

"… Me neither."

"Don't look at me! I'm just as surprised as you are!"

Chiyo laughs. "Well, it's not uncommon for a specialty class to gain a special skill. They're usually in the form of a weapon, mode-change, or powerful move."

Yuumi yawns. "Is it my turn yet? I wanna see what I got!"

"Yes, of course." Chiyo taps Yuumi's head, and a graph comes up, similar to mine.

But this time, the highest spike was Intelligence, and the lowest was Speed.

Intelligence? Her? This thing must be busted.

She then returns to the 'Specials' page.

"Warrior's Rage,"

Chiyo reads aloud.

"This special allows the user's weapon to get stronger the more enemies they face. It also gives you an attribute boost too."

Yuumi grins. "Yep! That's a whole lot better than some unreadable special. I'm cool with that."

"My special is going to be something totally awesome! Just you wait!"

"Yeah, yeah."

Chiyo lifts the staff off her head, setting its end on the ground.

Aiyoma puts her hand on her chin.

"Well, at least we know what your attributes look like now. But you've only trained for a few months. If we had a bit more time, I'm sure they'd be higher."

The purple-haired Sage bowed.

"Thanks again for your help today. Things could've gone a lot worse if you guys weren't here."

I rub my head in embarrassment.

"I don't know if you should thank us for causing such a fuss… But I believe this little favor you did makes us even."

Chiyo stood up and smiled. "Of course! Anytime!"

. . .

Me and Yuumi head towards the inn as Aiyoma and Chiyo stay back at the cathedral.

Yuumi put her hands behind her head.

"… And here I thought, us being sent to a new world meant we were the badasses. Boy, was I wrong."

"I came to that realization way before today, unfortunately."

I look over to Yuumi.

"How did you learn to summon your sword and armor?"

"I don't know. I just kind of did it on instinct."

What? Well, now that I think about it, I summoned my sword on accident as well.

"Are you really going to work with those knights from early? It was one thing to attack us, but they even attacked another knight. Who's side are they on anyway?"

"It's the only we can get stuff done in this world. Not only that, but it's best we infiltrate this land's highest order of command. Rumor has it that another Holy Knight is currently one of Phoenia's generals."

"You're kidding?"

I shake my head. "We need to learn about this place as much as we can. Because they obviously don't play the same rules, we did back in our past life."

We reach the front of the inn, and Yuumi stops.

"By the way, how'd you die? I… think I got ran over by a car?"

I look to the floor and groan. "I'd… rather not talk about…."

I walk into the inn with my head down as Yuumi blinks.

"Oh… Ok.."

. . .

The next morning we all meet in front of the inn and say our goodbyes.

"You sure you don't want to come back to Lanier with us? I could hook you up with a job as a waitress!"

Yuumi yawns.

"No thanks, I plan to travel to Phoenia and get a headstart there. See if I can get any information on the area."

I put out a fist in front of her.

"Continue getting stronger. Remember our goal."

She nudges my fist with hers and grins. "Yep. To defeat those stupid ass knights!"

I was thinking more… Defeat the Evil King… But that works for now.

Aiyoma smiles. "We will meet again very soon, take care of yourself till then."

She starts walking to the opposite way of us, waving her hand in the air.

I and Aiyoma turn around and start walking outside of town. I look at the sign pointing in the direction we're facing named 'Lanier.'

"Shall we get going?" Aiyoma walks forward beaming.

"Yep! Onward!" I run to her side.

With the Rite of Passage only a week away it's time to put all my training to the test. I can only imagine the trials that will come ahead.

Time to get good!

. . .