Arc 1 Chapter 4: A Desperate Attempt

“~You poor bastard, you still haven’t figured it out yet. You’ve got one more chance befo...-~”

Just as last time, the dream ended abruptly. Kyosuke’s eyes shot open, he didn’t scream this time, instead, he checked his eyes, he felt a strange feeling on them. As he touched the wet substance on his face he finally realized that he had been crying.

“Tears? W-Why was I crying?”

He looked around his cell, Kyosuke didn’t know what he expected to find, but he hoped that he was suddenly back home, back to the place where he felt safe.

“I hope Adal got our clothes, then we can get the hell out of here.”

He knew that if they got out tonight, they’d have to spend the night roaming the streets or finding a box to sleep in until they could both eventually find a job, after that, they’d have to find a place to live.

“You’re finally awake.”

“Finally awake? Did I miss something important?”

The same guard as before (the one with the very formal language) had been waiting for Kyosuke to wake up.

“Every level five prisoner has only one guard with them, that way the prisoner can have one final connection before their demise.”

Kyosuke hated the thought of death, but in the world, it felt a lot more humane. You can get executed for simply not having a permit in this world so making the person being executed have one final friend isn’t too bad of an idea. Though there are prisoners who don’t deserve a friend.

“What time is it? I feel like I’ve been asleep for ages.”

“Currently you have five minutes before breakfast, I suggest getting ready.”

Kyosuke felt like he had said that before, he felt like he’s said a lot of the same things. The formal speech of the guard calmed down Kyosuke, he didn’t feel like a prisoner about to die, he felt like a trapped soul waiting for the moment to be set free.

Five minutes passed and Kyosuke made his way into the dining hall. There, waiting for him like yesterday, Adal was waiting for him, with a smile on his face. Kyosuke ran over expecting something to have gone wrong but no, everything went as planned.

“How’d you do it!?”

“It was surprisingly easy, a guard ran in right as the nurse was about to leave and told him that a few prisoners got into a brawl. One of them was critically injured so both the nurse and warden left their offices, giving me enough time to take the clothes without a problem!”

Kyosuke shouted in happiness, but things could still go wrong. The hardest part was over, now, the only thing that needed to happen was the escape. They knew that they had to find a place when they’re together and a time where it was dark, so they picked dinner time for their final moments in this hell.

“We also need to start thinking about what we’ll do when we're out of prison, do you want to leave the city or stay here and find work?”

“If we stay here we can go to the adventurer’s board in the morning and find some jobs killing some Yūrei, they’re fairly easy monsters to kill.”

Even though Kyosuke was half Japanese, he never really studied it. He knew it was a Japanese word by the pronunciation and sound of it, but he didn’t know what it meant. Kyosuke, curious as to what it meant, asked.

“What exactly is a Yūrei?”

He felt almost embarrassed so he let out a slight chuckle since he was probably one of the only people in this country who didn’t know what a Yūrei was.

“Yūrei are faint spirits that haven’t moved over to the havens, sometimes people will give quests to go out and exercise them. The only problem is since they’re ghosts we’ll probably need a silver sword.”

Kyosuke was happy to know that without even knowing how to use magic, he could still be useful in getting money for their duo.

“ALRIGHT! So we have our plan, we get the hell out of here, do a few quests to get me a silver sword, and then find us a home to stay.”

Their plan was foolproof, nothing could get in their way except the guards, but their plan started in the evening so there would be fewer guards since it was nearing the night.

“Kyosuke? How do you plan to get us out of here?”

Kyosuke instantly replied ‘Well you see my small elven friend, I went on a stroll during last night's dinner and found a pretty interesting room.”

Adal looked concerned since rooms don’t usually just have an easy escape for prisoners. ‘What exactly is this type of room?’ Kyosuke knows that what he’s about to say will destroy the elves’ dreams for the next few weeks.

“Well you see, it had a little drain that led to the sewer!” Kyosuke made a cute ‘Please don’t kill me’ face at Adal in the hopes that he’d forget about the sewer part.

“SEWER ARE YOU CRAZY?” Adal was terrified of the sewer, he was scared of a lot of things, including but not limited to, heights, monsters, silence, the dark, and open water. ‘You have to be out of your mind Kyosuke, there’s no way I’m going down there!”

Kyosuke stared at Adal, he knew for the little time spent with Adal that he hated being confronted with his fears. ‘If you don’t come with me down there I’ll just have to leave you here and you’ll be forced to die.’ Kyosuke said this with the evilest stare and grin on his face.

“Agh, dammit Kyosuke fine! You’re so mean to me.”

“That’s the spirit Adal! Now we just have to wait until the night and we can make our way to that disgusting, dark, wet, and smelly sewer!”

They still had around six hours before they could make their way into the sewer room so their best choice was to avoid each other until then. If a guard saw them talking they were bound to be found out.

“We’ll split up until the evening, you’re going to have to bring our clothes with you to dinner so you’ll have to hide them.”

“Don’t worry Kyosuke, I have a spell just for that, it’s called “subtenes” It allows me to shrink objects down for easy transport.”

Kyosuke was confused that they would allow someone to use their powers in a prison, he would have thought that they would have a spell that blocked the use of magic in a certain area. ‘How are you allowed to use magic here, if they see anything won't they be mad?’

“Well you see, they actually allow us to use simple magic spells that are more for common use like Subtenes and even spells like “Soluion” which allows people to make small fires, they don’t have enough strength to stick to anything but they can make a small campfire or cook something small.”

Kyosuke was amazed by the world's magic, its spell names had some sort of connection to his world’s words, subtenes has the word sub which could mean subtract. Sol could also easily mean solar, as in solar flare. The world was slowly growing on Kyosuke and he wasn’t complaining.

“This world is so amazing, I can’t wait to learn some magic of my own. I don’t really even know if I can create magic, I hope I can, it sure would suck if I couldn’t. Sorry if I’m rambling, we should get going, I’ll see you soon partner!” Kyosuke stuck out his fist.

“What exactly do you expect me to do?”

Kyosuke's eyes went straight white, he didn’t know that this was a full-on fantasy where it mimicked real-world fantasy tropes.

“Stick out your first and hit it against mine, it’s like a way of telling the person that you’re friends.”

With that said, Kyosuke and Adal shared their first fist bump, starting a real friendship, a bond that couldn’t be broken, the bond of a secret.

***

Kyosuke was bored without Adal, he was getting so used to the fact that he had someone around his age to talk to that without him, he felt lost. Suddenly Kyosuke heard someone speak.

“Young man, may I ask you a question?”

The old man stood at the foot of his bed, he had entered Kyouke’s room.”

“Sure, I got nothing better to do. What did you want to ask?”

“Well you see, I wanted to ask you why you decided to come here without a permit? It’s not too expensive and doesn’t take very long, only a few weeks at most.”

Kyosuke knew he couldn’t tell him the real reason, but he could tell him the most he could without seeming crazy.

“I didn’t want to come here, I was forced by something I still don’t understand, I kind of just woke up in the middle of the town if that makes sense, I don’t remember ever coming here for any reason.”

The old man almost looked sorry for Kyosuke, he could tell that being taken to prison after not knowing where you were could seem pretty hard on the mind.

“Honestly this place is nothing like I’ve ever seen before, it’s so colorful and happy, even though I’ve been thrown into prison and I know I’m going to die, I still love it here. I felt like I died before I came here and it hurt so much.”

Tears started going down the face of Kyosuke.

“No one wants to die. No one, not even me, when you feel pain and think you’re going to die, it’s hard on you, you think that you would rather die than feel the pain. I just don’t want to be hurt, I want a nice life.”

Kyosuke wiped his eyes, and looked the old man in the face, they stared at each other for what felt like minutes before the old man spoke up and said.

“I know you’re planning on escaping.”

Kyosuke looked at him with a scared expression, before jokingly wiping it off his face and smiling.

“I know you did, I saw you watching us.”

The old man thought he caught Kyosuke off guard with what he said but in turn, he was caught off guard instead.

“I won’t help you, but I also won’t stop you. You seem like your story is just beginning and I refuse to take that away from you. I wish you luck young Kyosuke.”

Kyosuke shook his head in appreciation and gave a thumbs up, he knew that his plan was set in stone.

***

As night fell Kyosuke knew it was his time to escape so during dinner Kyosuke walked up to Adal. He told him the plan on how they would escape and how they would use the anger of another prisoner to get all of the guards out of their way.

Kyosuke pointed over to a big scary prisoner ‘You see that guy Adal? I need you to use Subtenes of his shirt, people will start to laugh and he’ll freak out on them, that will give us enough time to get out.’

Adal looked over to the man's shirt and whispered ‘subtenes.’ A small white light appeared from his eyes and suddenly the man went from wearing a triple XL to a small. All of the prisoners burst out into laughter making him look like a fool.

“STOP LAUGHING AT ME DAMMIT!” The angered prisoner threw a chair at someone who was pointing at him laughing.

Guards began to run over as the brawl broke out, they tried to restrain the prisoners but all of them joined in on an all-out brawl between the two parties. This gave Kyosuke and Adal enough time to slip out of all the commotion and make their way to the “sewer room.”

“I can smell it from here Kyosuke, are you sure this is the only way out.”

Kyosuke didn’t answer him, he just popped the sewer lid open and drug both of them down inside.

“Finally we’re out, it’s just a home stretch from here.”

Kyosuke sounded confident so Adal followed blindly, but in reality, Kyosuke didn’t have a clue where he was going, he was just hoping that at the end of the sewer was an exit.

They walked for what felt like hours before they started to see a glimmer of light.

“That light must be the way out Kyosuke!”

They started to pick up the pace and ran to the exit. Of the growing glimmer they also noticed a person silhouette, someone was standing there at the exit. It was the old man, there he stood almost waiting for them.

“Young Kyosuke and young Adal, you both made it out of the prison, you teamed up despite not knowing each other and used your heads and skills to escape. I commend you for both of your hard work and as a reward, I’ll finally introduce myself. I am the fourth king of this kingdom, King Edwin Vandel.”

The two young boys stood there with their eyes as white as snow. Kyosuke spoke up shouting ‘WHY THE HELL WERE YOU POSING AS A PRISON GUARD!”

King Edwin laughed stating that he likes to play around and check the kingdom out from the eyes of different people. It allowed him to see the troubles everyone faces, which in turn, helped him make decisions that made everyone happy.

Kyosuke and Adal looked out at the kingdom, it was beautiful at night, the moon reflected off of the giant pool of water in front of the prison. It made Kyosuke happy that he met the people he did. Kyosuke and Adal made sure to put on their clothes before Edwin started telling them something while pulling out two pieces of paper.

“I don’t know how to help you two boys but I do have these-.”

He pulled out two permits. Adal looked at Kyosuke as if he was asking him through facial expressions if they were allowed to take them. ‘Go ahead boys, take them.’

They finally took the permits from the king’s hand as they walked out of the sewers, it looked to have turned just about midnight as they left. Their only goal now was to survive the first night.

As they were walking down the steps of the prison, Adal started speaking to Kyosuke. ‘I didn’t think we’d actually get out of there, how did you know we could trust him?’

“I didn’t exactly know that we could trust him, but I took a guess since we had a talk in my cell a few hours ago.”

They made their way down the streets, some bars were open and a few people sprinkled out in about. They decided to creep down alleyways until the morning so that no guards would see them.

Once they got deep into an alleyway, Adal, filled with energy was so excited to escape that he proclaimed. ‘Thank you Kyosuke, thanks to you we can now li-.’

Before Adal could finish his sentence, he was sliced in half, still looking at Kyosuke.

-HOLY SHIT!

Kyosuke stumbled backward watching his only friend cut in half, blood covered the alleyway walls and floor.

“What the hell, WHAT the hell, WHAT THE HELL!”

He screamed at the sight of it, he could no longer see anything around him, only a black shadow that seemed to be moving at the speed of sound.

Kyosuke started crying and laughing as the black shadow danced around him, he folded his arms to cover his stomach, but sadly his stomach wasn’t what the mysterious shadow was aiming for.

Blood splashed against the wall and silence ensued as Kyosuke was decapitated.