Noah and Ayden dropped down onto the two beds in the room they rented. It was a bit uncomfortable, as they were just blocks of hay covered in a thin sheet, but it was still better than the ground.

“So, how are we gonna get up there?” Noah asked, staring at the ceiling above his bed. Ayden stayed silent for a few moments as he thought about it.

“We should probably just try to get there and then think about what to do in the moment. After all, we know nothing about why you can’t get up there.” He suggested. Just as the two of them were thinking about what to do if they couldn’t get up the mountain to where the mage seemed to be, they heard a knock on the door.

“Erm... Who’s there?” Noah asked, and a voice came from the other side of the door, “It’s Marielle, could I come in for a moment?”

“Come on in.” Ayden said, and the door quickly opened up as the girl stepped inside, with a two feet tall Kobold following her.

“I wanted to introduce Ness to you, you seemed a bit interested in him as well.” Marielle explained, and both Noah and Ayden stared at the Kobold, unsure what to say.

“Nice to meet you, Ness.” Ayden then said, since nothing else came to mind, and the Kobold quickly nodded his head, “Of course it is nice to meet Ness.”

“Right...” Noah said with a wry smile, “Anything else? Or did you just want us to meet him?”

“...Well... You also want to meet the sages, right?” Marielle asked.

“Sage? What do you mean?” Ayden replied, “It’s not just a normal mage?”

“What? Of course not! They’re super powerful! Right, Ness?” The girl exclaimed, and Ness quickly nodded his head, “The sages are great and powerful! Not as great or powerful as Ness, but all of them together might even compare!”

“Is that so?” Ayden asked, looking at Noah, “Well, if they really are ‘sages’, which I assume are really a stronger version of a ‘mage’, then they will certainly be able to heal the villagers, right?”

“Yeah, and they might know a thing or two about... us as well.” Noah suggested. Marielle and Ness looked at each other confused, as the Kobold stepped up to Noah’s bed, “What’s there to know about two brats like you?”

“If you have to know, then it’s that we have special abilities like you.” Noah replied. Ayden looked at his friend perplexed, “Why would you-“

“You know we have personal skills?” Marielle asked, “But how?”

“Wait, both of you do?” Noah asked, “I knew of Ness, but I had no idea about you, Marielle.”

“Oh... Shit...” Marielle muttered, “But wait, how did you know that Ness has a personal skill?”

“It’s related to my own. My guess is that his... personal skill is related to his senses in one way or another. Something with runes?”

“Runes?” Ayden asked. He was still a bit annoyed that Noah just revealed this, but since Noah was good at reading people, he must have figured that they could trust these two.

Noah took another look at the Kobold. He saw the writing in the same places, but the runes were different. They were a completely different type, even, “Yeah, but I don’t think it’s the runes in particular, but... writing, maybe?”

“Writing? If it affects all of his senses like you told me before... Then maybe it has to do with languages.” Ayden suggested, and Noah raised his brows, “Oh yeah, that could be it!”

“By Kraahk!” Ness exclaimed, “How do you know what Ness’ ability is?!”

“No, for real... How do you know what his ability is?” Marielle asked. While Ness was impressed and had glowing eyes of curiosity, Marielle was suspicious of these two men who suddenly appeared here and knew of their secrets.

Noah and Ayden looked at each other, “You know, this might be the first time we can tell others about it. If they both have ‘personal skills’ as well, then they probably shouldn’t freak out.” Ayden suggested.

“Hm, you’ve got a point. And we might learn about our abilities a bit.”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking.” Ayden said, and pointed at Noah, “He’s got the ‘Eye of the Heart’. He can see other’s personalities and certain abilities they use.”

“And he’s got the ‘Eye of the Soul’. He can see dead people.” Noah finished, while Marielle was absolutely perplexed. She looked at the two of them and in a confused manner stated, “I have the ‘Eye of the Body’... I can see the path that objects and people take.”

“Three people with skills of the same kind coming together in one place... Now that is a coincidence.” Ayden pointed out, but Noah was curious about something else instead, “And what’s the lizard’s skill?”

“Who’re you calling a lizard, brat?” Ness asked in an angry tone. He huffed and turned away before explaining, “Ness’ personal skill is ‘Language Comprehension’. Ness’ ancestors have given him their ancient knowledge to let him read, speak, and understand any language there is.”

Ayden looked at Ness with a wry smile, “You can understand literally any language there is, but you speak in third person?”

“Well, how else would you know who Ness is speaking of? Dumb human.” The Kobold sighed as he shook his head in disappointment.

“But why do you want to see the sages again? Because of some sort of disease?” Marielle asked, and Noah quickly explained, “Ah, yeah. In the village we’re from, a bunch of people have this weird disease. It can only be cured with magic, apparently.”

“Oh... Our reason sounds really dumb compared to that.” Marielle admitted, “We’re here just on a random stop... I want to see the world after Ness told me a bunch of stories about different countries, and when we got the chance to come to this island. Ness said he knew there were sages here, don’t ask me how-“

“The wisdom of the ancient dragons, of course!” Ness exclaimed.

“...Yeah, that. Anyway, Ness suggested we come here because he wanted to talk to the sages, and I thought the idea was cool as well. So here we are!”

“But you can’t get up onto the mountain?” Ayden asked, “Is it too steep? Or too cold, maybe?”

Marielle instantly shook her head, “No, that’s not the issue! We can get about three-quarters of the way, but then there’s a barrier stopping us from going further.”

“Do you wanna try going together?” Noah suggested, “With the four of us, we might be able to figure something out. Right, Ayden?”

“I think so. Maybe. It’s worth a try, at least.”

Marielle smiled broadly at the two young men, “Awesome! I’m off work tomorrow, so we can go then!”

“Speaking of... Why are you even working here?” Noah asked curiously, and Marielle scratched her cheek embarrassedly.

“Well, I let Ness take care of all the money, and he... kind of... lost all of it on the mountain...”

---

Early in the morning, the sun shone through the slits of the wooden blinds keeping the hole in the wall that was the window shut. It illuminated the room as Noah and Ayden woke up. They pushed themselves off their beds exhaustedly, looking at each other for a few seconds.

“This is still real?”

“Yup, it’s still real.”

After their short exchange that became a bit of a habit ever since they came to this world, the two friends stood up and got dressed.

“Marielle said they’d wait for us downstairs, right?” Noah asked as he stretched to get rid of the stiffness in his back, and Ayden slowly nodded his head, “Yeah, I think so. We’ll just eat breakfast and then we should head off.”

“Sounds good.” As he threw his backpack over his shoulder, Noah stepped up to the door. He turned the key and swiftly stepped outside. Ayden followed after him a moment later, and the two of them locked the door and headed back downstairs with the key in their hands.

Marielle and Ness were already sitting at a table in the corner of the room, eating their breakfast. There were two extra bowls of oatmeal on the table next to them. As Noah and Ayden sat down, ready to eat, they couldn’t help themselves but stare at Ness a bit. Instead of using the wooden spoon right next to the bowl, he pressed his face into the bowl and was eating its contents like that.

“Yeah... You get used to it.” Marielle said, “But hurry up and eat, it’s gonna take half a day just to get up to the point where the barrier starts.”

“Alright. Thank you, Marielle.” Ayden said with a smile on his face, and the girl turned away with a light blush on her face, “N-No worries. But just call me Mari.”

“Ight, sounds good.” Noah said bluntly, as he started eating his oatmeal. It was bland, basically tasteless, but at least it was filling. And that was just what Noah needed, as he proceeded to stuff as much of it into his mouth as he could at a time.

Ayden looked at his friend and then turned toward Mari, “Yeah... You get used to it.”

Mari chuckled a bit as she continued to eat as well, and it didn’t take long until they were all finished. Mari apparently already paid for everything in advance, kindly enough, so they could immediaetly get outside to climb up the mountain. Like some sort of dog, Ness was running ahead of them on all fours. And then, they reached the gate on the other side of town. They were quickly let out by the guard standing by next to it, and then, Noah and Ayden saw the path that they had to take for the first time.

A mix of stairs and regular steep paths, leading them up the mountain. But Noah and Ayden couldn’t even see the end of this route when they raised their heads.

“You up for this?” Noah asked his friend. Ayden wasn’t particularly the most fit, and he basically already reached his limits through the constant hiking throughout the past few days.

“I’ll be fine... I hope. There will most likely be places to rest every once in a while, right?”

“Yup.” Mari nodded immediately, “There’s a really nice spot about halfway up the mountain, so we can take a break there!”

Ayden looked back at the girl in front of him with a wry smile, while Noah was simply grinning at his best friend’s demise.