Arc 2 Chapter 1- Chilly Night

Two weeks after the events in the Kingdom of Delpa, the trio of Kyosuke, Adal, and Ai was still in full commission. The three moved into a small house in the countryside near Charpel (the city they’re looking towards going to). Their life was peaceful at this point, with no one trying to kill them and most importantly, no fights among them.

Kyosuke got a job at a local tavern in the small town of Goldean, it has a population of around five hundred, and the locals were quick to help Kyosuke and friends get onto their feet. With the death of King Edwin Vandel, they were subjected to leaving Delpa in search of a new place to live.

“OHHHHH SHIIIIIIITTTT!”

Kyosuke’s eyes blasted out of his head when he realized he was late for work. He jumped out of bed and ran straight into his closet, Ai was in the room under him. The cost of living out in the boonies was extremely good.

The scene opens up on a peacefully sleeping Ai as she sleeps through the day, unlike Kyosuke, she didn’t have a job. Her eyes open with annoyance as Kyosuke was stumbling around upstairs trying to put his clothes on. With anger in her mind, Ai ran upstairs to give Kyosuke a piece of it.

“KYOSUKE I AM TRYING TO SLE-”

Ai was cut short when walking in to find Kyosuke standing there in his birthday suit. Their eyes locked as Kyosuke managed a broken grin.

“Sure is a cold morning, isn’t it.”

Kyosuke had mere seconds to mudder this before he was smashed into the ground, the might of Ai was one to not be a mess with. As bad as this might sound to the average person, this was life the average life in Kyosuke’s house.

“Guys, can you stop arguing like an old married couple, it’s only seven in the morning.”

Adal stepped into the room and took a glance down. Embarrassed he instantly looked up and started to step back out into the hallway, Adal was under the idea that Kyosuke and Ai were in the middle of something. Kyosuke looked frantically around, aware that Adal was under the influence of the wrong thing grew beet red, and began to call to Adal.

“WAIT NO DON’T LEAVE, COME BACK!”

Kyosuke used a poor choice of words and Adal went further into the depths of not being able to look them in the eyes again, Ai stood there not being able to say a thing. Adal eventually left the room and with Kyosuke on his knees begging for forgiveness (even though it’s his room) Ai finally took his apology and left the room.

-DAMMIT, IN ANIME IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE ME WALKING IN ON HER, I’LL NEVER LOOK HER IN THE EYES AGAIN!

After that mishap, Kyosuke finishes getting dressed and heads downstairs.

“You might as well eat breakfast since you’re already late.”

Ai was making breakfast for the group since she lived there without a job. Adal was able to make a living off of being a maid for the local inn, the only problem is that he was forced to cross-dress. Kyosuke constantly pokes fun at poor Adal but only in good fun, in reality, Kyosuke does his best to make Adal feel better about the position he’s in, mainly because Adal gets paid almost double what Kyosuke does.

“I know, but it’s only my second day and I’m late, I guess my excuse can be that I was attacked by an orc.”

Ai turned around and glared at Kyosuke with murderous eyes. Kyosuke chuckled and waved his hand in defeat, he knew that against Ai in any sort of battle, he would lose.

“So you guys really are acting like a married couple, did something happen between you two?”

Adal said this with a grin on his face, almost mocking Ai and Kyosuke. The feelings between the two we’re so toxic that putting them in words would almost be impossible. Kyosuke and Ai filled with rage looked at each other and then proclaimed.

“HELL NO!”

They all started laughing since it was the first time since the first day of getting to the house that they all set down to eat breakfast. It was a decently sized house, they had it custom made since Ai inherited a decent amount of Dekadrachm from Edwin, No one knows how the explosions were made, Kiran was the only guess up until this point, but they expected him to be gone for weeks so the realization that he’s already back in good health was scary.

The house had a modern feel inside, it looked like an average upper-class American home, it didn’t have the same modern tech, but its design was unseen in this time period. Kyosuke didn’t know the exact time period but he checked at what technology they had and guessed that they were in medieval times as he had thought before.

The time was nearing winter according to Adal and Ai. Snow hadn't yet come down, but the air was starting to get slightly colder.

“Breakfast is served, boys,” Ai said with a smile on her face, she was happy that she could be useful to them even without a job.

Kyosuke began chowing down, eating as fast as he could that way he wouldn’t be as late to his job. Ai began watching Kyosuke, she watched him inhale his food with an unknown look in her eyes. Her heart made one large pound and she got embarrassed.

“Kyosuke if you keep eating so fast you’ll choke!”

Adal was always making sure Kyosuke and Ai acted accordingly, he wanted to make them stand out as little as possible. Adal looked over to where Ai was standing when he noticed she was gone.

“I gotta run, THANK YOU FOR THE FOOD AI!”

Kyosuke ran out the door and made his way to the tavern to start working.

Back at the house Adal and Ai were working on dishes, Adal decided to ask Ai a question.

“Excuse me, but, where did you go earlier? I notice that you vanished without a trace and I want to know why.”

Ai stopped doing the dishes and stood straight up, her face red with embarrassment and she replied with a quick- ‘NOTHING!’

Adal didn’t want to question her further since he had a good idea already what it was, he didn’t want to poke the bear though, and wanted to see how things played out from the sidelines.

***

The countryside was beautiful, everyone was doing their own thing, some people were farming, some were getting ready for work, and then some were just hanging around outside watching the people walk past.

“Well hey there Kyosuke!”

A man in his late thirties was outside with his daughter watching the people walk past, he shouted to Kyosuke greeting him. People trusted Kyosuke since he was with one of the most highly rated king’s daughters.

“Hey there Velmar, I see you’re taking care of your family as usual,” Kyosuke said with a smile on his face

The local townsfolk were quite infatuated with Kyosuke, people around the country heard about him taking Kiren down, even if in the end he was able to get back at him. Kyosuke was the first person to have damaged Kiren and lived to tell the tale which gave him a lot of respect among the people.

Kyosuke made it to the tavern where he worked, it was filled with lots of people as usual. The best part about his job was getting to meet all of the adventurers, they came through the town now and then and told many stories which gave Kyosuke hope.

“Hey kid why don’t you get me a drink.”

A smug-looking adventurer with red hair came in, it made Kyosuke think he was some sort of main character of a light novel. The man was very cocky and seemed to think very highly of himself, Kyosuke didn’t think the worst of people so he was inclined to believe that the man was that awesome.

“WOW, ARE YOU AN ADVENTURER?! PLEASE TELL ME ALL OF YOUR STORIES NOW PLEASE PLEASE!”

Kyosuke’s eyes sparkled like diamonds as he screamed like a mad man. Kyosuke loved the thought of being powerful enough to save people, he wants to be an adventure someday after all.

“Heh, it seems I have a fanboy, I guess I can tell you a story or two of mine. It all started a month ago when I was sent on a quest to slay a dragon in the mountains of Linos, Those mountains are in the country of Velmanus and are almost impossible to get to without a license, a license you can only obtain if you’re a powerful magic user like me.”

Kyosuke was so intrigued by the story that he forgot he was even supposed to be getting the man a drink.

“The dragon was tough and I lost several men trying to slay him, but I was able to use my epic powers to defeat him, I didn’t even have a scratch on me.”

The man’s story was so poorly put together that the people around him started to laugh, but Kyosuke was dead set on believing that this guy was telling the truth. He was the first man to have told Kyosuke a story about dragons so he was extremely excited about hearing about it.

“That’s so cool! How did you become so powerful? I want to be like you someday!"

Kyosuke had a smile on his face and truly cared about the people coming in, he listened to all of their hardships because he knew no one else would. He would listen to stories of failed quests where the person telling the story had to watch his men die, and stories where the quest went amazing and they saved the world. Everything that went through Kyosuke’s head was kept in there for when he starts adventuring.

"Keep dreaming kid, someday you'll get there if you're lucky."

The man got up laughing to go talk to another group of people while Kyosuke continued working. Kyosuke mainly worked up front serving alcohol to the travelers, sometimes they’d try to get him to share a toast, but Kyosuke wasn’t a drinker since he was so young. He never really got into the rebellious phase of going behind his parent’s back to seem “hip” or “cool”.

The time was nearing midnight and Kyosuke’s shift was about to end, he worked as many hours as he could to make money. He wants to be able to save enough money to get everyone to the adventure school, Kyosuke doesn’t even know the name of the school yet but hopes that if he gets enough for all of them, they can rent their house out while they go learn from the strongest magic users.

Kyosuke was finishing up cleaning the dishes when the world’s colors inverted for what felt like a millisecond second. His head felt like it was exploding and he didn’t know the cause of this. Almost as soon as the pain started, it stopped. Life went back to normal and everything seemed to be fine.

“You’ve done a great job today kid, you can clock out now and make sure to get home safe, it’s very late and these drunks might try to mess with you.”

He laughed this off since he knew that Kyosuke could handle himself, that’s when the cocky adventure came over to say something to Kyosuke.

“Are you scared, little man? You want me to come to protect you from the scary dark?”

The man said this all with a mocking tone in his voice, he knew that Kyosuke didn’t want to walk alone this late at night, but to show him that he can be independent, he got up from his seat and started out the door.

“Nah, I’ll be fine, it’s not like there’s anyone out there that’ll try to kill a lonely teenager.”

He stuck out his tongue and walked out the door. The night air was cool, he didn’t know the temperature since he didn’t have a phone anymore but he guessed that it was around fifty degrees. He got off early yesterday since it was his first day, but today he had to walk home in the dark cold.

No one was out at this time, it was only Kyosuke and the elements, he hadn’t started to learn magic yet since he was waiting for a day off to learn from Ai. Adal only worked four days a week thanks to the fact he made so much and he’s thought to be so young, that gave him enough time to start training with Ai almost immediately, so the only person who was behind on magic, was Kyosuke.

Kyosuke was looking up at the stars, something that was almost impossible to see in his world. The world here really did seem more healthy, without the pollution of factories, cars, and such, there was a huge difference in the quality of everything. Even nighttime didn’t feel like night since the stars illuminated the world around him.

The air around Kyosuke started to feel denser, he tightened the scarf that was around his neck yet it felt like a sharp pain was coming into his fingers, the air around him dropped even more and it started to feel like he was put in a freezer overnight.

Kyosuke began to freak out and went running away, right as his foot left the ground he heard a loud crack and he fell into the ground. Kyosuke was dazed and confused, little did he know but his blood began to freeze, when he looked back to see what had happened, he noticed his foot in the same position it had been in before, except, there was no leg attaching it. His foot had been frozen in place and fallen off.

“AGH, MY LEG, WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING!”

Kyosuke began flailing around trying to generate warmth when his body started to slowly fall apart, first his fingers, then his ears, and bigger parts started to fall shortly after. Kyosuke looked up to see a dark figure standing on a branch, hidden behind a tree, Kyosuke tried to yell out but his tongue had frozen clean off.

“HEP ME PEASE!”

Kyosuke tried reaching his slowly breaking hand out before it was too late. Kyosuke had been frozen in place his body being almost turned into a statue an empty husk of his formal self.

The darkness flowed in and around Kyosuke. Slowly the darkness started to erase itself, time began to go backward, things that had happened already started to reverse, and all of a sudden.

“You’ve done a great job today kid, you can clock out now and make sure to get home safe, it’s very late and these drunks might try to mess with you.”

The reality set in as Kyosuke looked down at the dirty plate in his hand.