“How long has it been?” Otto wondered, by now the fact he was immortal was painfully obvious.

He sat against the wall opposite the window, looking at the vibrant blue sky.

“But there isn’t a way out yet…” he sighed.

He turned his head towards the black book beside him, its smooth, black cover a comforting look.

“Not in the mood for a chat today?” he asked the book seemingly awaiting a reply.

Otto spent the last few days practising the select spell.

Black scorch marks were left along the walls of the tower.

Out of nowhere, he heard the familiar sound of himself from below.

“Hey, Otto…” the voice began.

“Look outside…”

The normal Otto raised an eyebrow.

“What?”

“Have a look outside…” he repeated.

Reluctantly, Otto grabbed the chair he previously carried upstairs to his ‘bedroom’ and placed it before the window.

Otto climbed onto it and was able to see the big field of flowers again, the blue sky and the distant hills that made up the crater shape.

Several masked figures stood outside.

“Huh?!” Otto strained his eyes to see them better.

There were four of them, clad in leather armour and hoods with what looked like the fantasy equivalent of gas masks strapped to their entire faces.

They held swords and bows in their hands.

Opposite them was a young-looking boy, wearing no mask and clad in typical fantasy peasant clothes except for the newsboy hat.

“More people!” Otto exclaimed.

“Exactly…” the murky Otto confirmed.

“You need to get out and talk to them before your brain turns into grey slime…”

“Nonsense!” the book laughed.

Otto turned to face the now talking book.

“What are you going to do to those hooligans when they attack? Cast a fire spell and burn your hand?” the book continued.

Otto was very torn in that moment.

“I know that book is right…” he thought.

“But the fact I’m talking to books is also a decent argument in favour of me talking to some humans for a change…”

A loud bang could be heard outside, Otto looked back out and saw the boy holding a small object in his hand, next to him lay one of the masked individuals, laying on the ground completely still.

“A wand? Another magic user?” Otto thought, he couldn’t properly see the item.

“Looks like they know how to use paralysis magic!”

He remarked seeing another person fall down limply.

“Ignore it!”

“Go out there!”

The book and the murky Otto continued playing tug-of-war with Otto as he finally made his decision.

Otto ran up to the book.

“…”

It didn’t say anything.

Then, book in hand, he began making his way down the stairs, into the gross water where murky Otto stood with folded arms.

He glanced down to the book and shook his head in disappointment before stepping aside and gesturing for Otto to take a step into the water.

He did as instructed, for some reason the idea of the ancient book getting destroyed never crossed his mind.

As Otto walked deeper and deeper into the water, he never felt the urge to breathe.

Otto began walking down the stairs, seeing the murky Otto standing in the corner of the room wearing a road-safety vest and construction helmet, waving traffic directing lights towards the next staircase.

Otto glanced over to the side of the wall and saw that there were, in fact, several pairs of colourful shorts neatly folded and lying in a pile by the wall as promised.

He gestured towards them and then looked back to murky Otto.

After a few seconds, murky Otto shrugged giving Otto the go-ahead to steal some ancient shorts.

He went for a turquoise pair with over-sized pant legs that went down past his knees.

He put on his shorts and looked over to murky Otto for some sort of reaction.

Murky Otto scratched his chin for a few seconds, inspecting his choice of shorts before nodding approvingly.

Satisfied with his choice, Otto began making his way down lower into the tower.

This room was empty except for a single wooden table, four chairs and what looked like several pints of ale.

Not wanting to risk gulping down any of the green water for the sake of some booze, Otto continued his way down until he saw it, a door.

A simple wooden door, of course, there were still stairs going down, but the door with a small window through which came a load of light stood before him.

Murky Otto appeared here as well, he was beside the door, dressed like the receptionist at a fancy restaurant, he bowed down and opened the door causing all the water to sill outside, dragging Otto out into the green fields.

That’s when he felt the unpleasant sensation, the need to breathe, the hunger from his now empty stomach, the thirst, the cold from the water, the warmth from the sun.

He wasn’t quite sure when it happened but at some point, Otto was laying in the water, floating on his back in the lake in the crater.

“Huh?”

He tried to stand up only to find himself without any footing, “How deep is this lake?!” he looked over to the tower seeing only a crumbling ruin.

No floor of the tower had all its walls intact, in fact, there were only three floors that haven't long since collapsed.

“…”

“I really am crazy…” he thought looking up to the sun and feeling his eyes sting.

Suddenly, another loud bang could be heard.

“That’s right! The others!” he remembered.

Otto quickly swam over to the shore, seeing the white flowers up-close.

They looked like tulips except with more open flowers.

In the distance he saw them, one remaining person wearing the leather clothes and the boy holding something in his hand.

“That’s him! The mage!” Otto exclaimed loudly as he climbed onto the grass and ran in the direction of the stranger, suddenly the last leather-wearing person collapsed to the ground with a bang.

“Hey!” Otto exclaimed waving his hand at the strange child.

The stranger turned to face Otto, they lifted their hand-held device up and pointed it up towards Otto, his attention was glued to their face.

Once he ran up close enough, he took a second to catch his breath.

“Relax, relax! I’m on your side! No need to paralyze me!” Otto laughed.

The stranger cocked their head to the side uncertainly as they raised an eyebrow.

“Paralyze?” he asked, his voice cold and devoid of emotion.

Otto looked back to the stranger and over to the leather-wearing corpses filled with bullet holes and bathed in blood.

It took Otto a few seconds to process the sight, he looked at the holes in the leather clothes that exposed rivers of blood and tunnels of still-warm flesh.

Otto looked back to the stranger and felt a wave of dread come over him as the device this ‘mage’ was using came into view, it was a silver, six-round revolver.

His expression must have been easy to read as the mysterious child breathed a sigh, placing his gun away.

“Considering you look like you’re about to throw up, I’ll assume you’re not working with them…” he remarked taking a step towards the four corpses and looking through their pockets.

Otto didn’t want to leave, this was his only shot at human interaction as far as he knew, but this person just murdered four people.

“How can you be so calm… after… murdering someone?” Otto asked.

The child didn’t bother turning to face Otto as he spoke.

“Practice,” they replied sounding fully serious.

If Otto had anything to throw up, he probably would have done it now.

The child breathed a sigh and turned to face Otto.

“Would you stop staring at me, already? It’s weird…”

“R-right!” Otto stuttered out, turning to look at the lake again.

A few minutes passed of Otto tensely staring into the distance.

After robbing the corpses, the child removed their masks and placed them in a small brown bag on their back.

“S-say… what year is this?” Otto asked.

The murderous stranger scratched his head for a few seconds as if trying to recall something.

“…”

“No idea…” the boy shrugged.

Otto breathed a sigh.

“I see…”

The boy looked Otto up and down for a few seconds.

“W-what is it?” he asked uncertainly.

“You’re not from this world, are you?” the boy asked with a bored expression.

“Huh?!” Otto turned to face the stranger again, his expression serving as all the confirmation the boy needed.

He breathed a sigh.

“Which one…?” he asked lazily.

“Which what?” Otto questioned.

“Which world… I take it this is your first time…” he replied.

“Y-yeah…” Otto nodded.

The boy crossed his arms.

“Alright…”

The boy sat down on the grass overlooking the lake.

“I’ll give you a quick, and by god, I mean quick, rundown of this world…” the child began.

Otto nodded, sitting a fair distance from the murderer.