After jumping through the portal made by Mrs. R, I found myself lying down on the cold floor. The blizzard was insane. I couldn’t stand at all and the snow was slowly burying me. It was around this time when I started to feel like my life was fading away. I was unconsciously carried by Hosuke. Even so, Hosuke couldn’t carry me long enough. There was not a single shelter for us. We fell down and slowly being buried alive by the blizzard.

So this is The Written World. I should have known to prepare if this was the case. I didn’t know the blizzard would be that bad. Now that my life slowly fades away, I started seeing things. Things that I never saw before. Things that I couldn’t believe I just saw it.

I saw a person fighting another person. From the looks of both of their figure, they looked a little taller than me. The enemy he was facing was a little shorter than him. Probably about my current height. It looked like a girl because of the long hair. But that’s all I can tell. I don’t who are them and why am I looking at them.

The guy tried to punch the girl but the punch went through her as if you were punching a water. It doesn’t hurt the girl at all. What happened next was that the guy was blasted away by the girl. I couldn’t tell what kind of magic it was. But that was all of the guy. It looked like he was easily defeated by that girl.

And that was it. The next thing I realised was I finally woke up from a sleep. The ceiling that I was seeing was something that I was not familiar with. What happened next was a little girl looking at me surprised. The little girl ran away and called for someone. That girl was probably calling for her parents, I figured. But what appeared then was actually, Hosuke.

“Are you alright, White?” asked Hosuke as he was grabbing a chair to sit on.

I was still trying to understand what was going on. If I’m not mistaken, both of us agreed to do a 1 Star Platinum request. We ended up going inside a storybook through a portal made by Mrs. R. Then, a wild blizzard almost killed us. I guess what happened then was that the little girl’s family probably helped us and carried us back to their home. That was what Hosuke told me of course.

“I see. Where are the parents now?” I asked.

“The parents? They said they are going to the city.”

“Why?” I moved my body to the wall so I could lay at it.

“I don’t know.”

“And leaving the girl alone?”

“She’s not alone, White. She’s with her sister.”

“Sister?”

“Yeah. But both of them are still kids. So, not much of an information gathering to work with.”

That sounds about right. We need an adult who could tell us some information that was related to what the story was written about. There’s no way two little girls can help us out. Hold on, two little girls? Are we just stupid to not realise it at all? Maybe it was just my feelings but I think I am not mistaken.

Before I even got to make a conclusion, another girl, probably the little girl’s sister appeared. She was carrying two hot chocolate. That hot chocolate was probably for us, the guest. She laid down the cups and went away.

“Hey, uh…girl…” I awkwardly stopped her.

She looked back and said, “What is it, mister?”

“Well.” I had a hard time figuring out my words, “Where are we?”

The little girl replied to me with a monotonous tone, “You guys are in the cold region.”

“No. Really. The name of the place.”

“Crediah. You guys are in Winthold, Crediah.”

Crediah? Isn’t Crediah one of the states in Crestia? So does that mean that this storybook takes place on a real place? But since this storybook was made to mask the real book, which is a book about the mythical beast, Snow Phoenix. Does that mean, that the Phoenix was actually founded here in Crestia? Okay, that’s kind of cool. Now I feel like I wanted to know more about the other book that guy wrote.

“We’re in Crediah? That’s a 6-7 hour trip from Dragonstal.” said Hosuke who were surprised of the little girl’s answer.

Dragonstal was where we lived. It was where we studied at Soul Power High School. It was there that we fought the fake dark faction, Dark Diablo. To realise that we were suddenly transported to a land not far from us felt a little bit weird. Here I thought we would transported into a fictional world created by the writer. But then again, all of his discoveries were masked by a fairy tale that he made for some reason.

“Is there anything else, mister…?”

“You can call me, Hosuke. This is White.” Hosuke introduced both of us to the girl.

Suddenly, her little sister crept next to her, “H-hello…”

“This is Astral.” The girl introduced her little sister and then proceeds to introduce herself. “You can call me, Zen.”

The way she said those words were a little bit weird. It doesn’t looked or sounded like she was showing emotion at all. But I can tell that her words were sincere in a way. Why? Because, because I kind of have the same speech pattern as hers. Its not that Zen was not interested in us. It just probably means that she was cautious of us. That’s a given, considering we are strangers to those two sisters. Same as I used to back in middle school. I guess I have to say thanks to those two friend of mine. They made me talk freely without being worried of anything.

Even so, I still have a hard time of showing my emotions. But that is not a bad thing at all. Rulend said that not showing your emotion is actually one of the main thing used during an investigation. If done perfectly, you could also get away from being interrogated for a long time. The reason was because, the tone of the speech sounded as if the speaker is confident of their words. There is a certain percentage that the person may tell the truth because of the confidence tone that they give to the interrogator. They can also make the interrogator believe a lie using that kind of speech pattern. But it must be done perfectly. I guess that was how I beat Zone’s Cheat. Just being myself.

“If there’s anything else, just call Astral. I’ll be going out for a little while.” Zen then turned to her sister, “Take care of yourself, Astral. You never know what kind of people you saved. Especially if they are bad peoples…”

“Were not bad peoples…” said Hosuke.

“Likely story, mister Hosuke. You know what. I’m staying home. I’m not going to let you two touch my sister.” Zen dragged Astral away from us and went to the living room.

“Well then…that’s a first. Someone calling us bad. I wonder how that can happen…” Hosuke looked directly at me while smiling mischievously.

“I’m not a bad person, Hosuke. I just happen to love cute things.”

“Oh really?”

“Gosh, I hate you so much. Freaking furry loving idiot…”

To Hosuke, that’s probably both an insult and a compliment at the same time. Why? Because he is someone who actually loves animal. If taken to the extreme, I…I can’t even describe it properly without explicitly telling it exactly what it is…Go find it yourself. This is one of the time where I broke the 4th wall and talked back to the reader. Hello there, reader. Have you been enjoying Stardust? In any case…let’s continue…

“Oh shut up, White. You're no different. You like cute girls just like how you like Rika. …” Hosuke replied with an insult.

I’m not going to explain it. But in my defence, I say this. I am not, I repeat. I am not interested to little kids in such a horrible way! I am not that person! We are not going to talk about this anymore. Jeez, what the heck am I rambling on about…

“Anyway…I think we just hit the jackpot, Hosuke.” I decided to change the topic.

“I can’t believe you just tried to change the topic, White.”

“I don’t want it to get even worse. Let’s talk something else, please.”

“Fine. What kind of jackpot are you talking about?”

“Don’t you realise it yet? Those two girls..they may be the girl in the book.”

“Are you sure about that?” Hosuke questions my theory.

“What makes you think I’m wrong?”

“Nothing. I’m just curious how you figured that out without having enough evidence at all.”

“You want evidence? I have some. Those girls have a bad parent. That’s one. The story involves a big sister while her little sister is the supporting character that helped her. That’s another proof there.”

“But isn’t that just mere coincidence?”

Goodness. How am I suppose to make him believe that this was the right place. Maybe it would be helpful if I actually read the book instead of listening to the short version from Mrs. R.

“Then what else can I make you believe?”

“How about we just enjoy this hot chocolate first before making any assumptions.” Hosuke took a sip of hot chocolate.

I also took a sip of it. I have to admit it, it was totally delicious. But then again, I am a sucker to anything related to chocolate. It’s like a weakness. Honestly, this wasn’t the first time I drank a cup of hot chocolate but this one was far too amazing than the one that I used to drink back at home. My mother used to make it for me when I was still small. But now, I made it myself of course.

As we were enjoying the hot chocolate, we suddenly heard a loud slam. It was probably the front door of the house we figured. We decided to walk out of the room to see what was going on. We only saw Astral holding her teddy bear while looking at the door.

“Where’s your sister, Astral?!” Hosuke was panic.

“She went outside…” Astral pointed the doorway.

“What is she doing?!”

“I…don’t…know…”

I patted Hosuke and said, “Calm down, Hosuke. You’re scaring little Astral.”

“Really? Oh my, I’m so sorry Astral.” Hosuke calmed her down by hugging her.

As he was calming her down, Hosuke made a slight eye contact with me and gave me a smile. It irritates me. But not a lot, thankfully. I don’t have time to think about it. The next thing that transpired was that the door opened and Zen came in running into the house. The door was slammed shut thanks to the harsh blizzard.

I approached her and asked, “What were you doing, Zen?”

She was breathing heavily then showed me her hands. She was hiding a bird. And on that moment was when we finally and most certainly hit the jackpot. This was exactly the girl in the book. There’s no other way. Zen saved a bird during a wild blizzard. That’s exactly the same as what Mrs. R told us. This was it. We were lucky enough to end up meeting her. That was easy. We just have to follow the story from now on. We just have to make sure we don’t change the story. It’s not that hard. Nothing can go wrong…

Little did I know back then. That word was actually a curse in many stories. Nothing can go wrong…indeed…

TO BE CONTINUED