Farkas and Paulie began rooting for the two warriors on the screen, a marvelous cheer for their victory as though they had watched a primetime MMA showdown. Hajime would’ve joined them in a heartbeat, but even as the fire-breathing menace fell by the couple’s hands, his eyes remained fixed on their smiles of victory.
The dragon, its wings riddled with holes and its head severed clean, vanished into pixel nothingness. The screen returned to Harald’s zoomed head faster than Paulie could cheer one last time. The king laughed in joy before wiping a tear on his cheek. “Wonderful, isn’t it, young master? Even other realms know the madness in killing foe after foe.”
“Madness? That ain’t no madness of any kind,” said Hajime, shaking his head like a biologist observing a new species. “It’s love. That’s what Light Novel Boy and Kendo Girl have always shown for each other.”
“…interesting choice of names. I suppose you’re telling me you’ve seen this couple before more than you’d like to admit.”
Hajime nodded with some foretold restraint, his eyes as earnest as a martyr without guilt. “Yeah, they just needed a little push. I was there to see it all until our graduation.” He picked up on Farkas’ footsteps behind him, possibly to ask if their small talk beforehand had become the most peculiar coincidence right out of a sitcom. Perhaps there was no point in hiding it.
If he were to hide it from them, he wouldn’t have gained as much as a cold, for sure. Even with a bravado the size of Jupiter, it was impossible not to achieve at least a few admirers throughout his previous life. Then again, if he did tell them from the start, they’d probably annoy him about it day and night and even at lunch.
Paulie advanced closer, clearing his throat. “Your Majesty, could you have known something about this, even if you say you’re not ‘omniscient’?”
“I haven’t a clue, my loyal subject,” shrugged Harald. “Feuer never tells me anything, and sometimes, I feel he’s not even from their era. He could’ve been a dinosaur, for all I know. There is one thing I should explain, however, apart from warning you again not to level up at any cost.”
“What would that be?”
“Feuer doesn’t like visitors in his old home… or more accurately, he can’t stand them as far as he could toss their heads into the sun. Since I’m a busy figurehead, the law requires that I say there’s nothing I can do once he realizes. Stay safe, you lot.”
Hajime burst into laughter like he had witnessed the improv skit of the century. Behold, the king who had the power to mix water with oil and turn poppy seeds into chemo pills used all that divine energy to form an excuse that wouldn’t even convince a grade-schooler. It was magnificent.
He helped himself with another shot of brandy, suggesting his friends do the same as a toast for the mission that may include encountering slimes and goblins of the non-horde variety. With a unanimous clink of their glass, he uttered, “Here’s to you, you shameless bastard! Don’t blame us for getting our shit kicked in because of your stupid test.”
“No, I just wanted to fill some quotas for today, so don’t blame me first when you return!” The transmission ended with Harald doing a peace sign and winking like a pop idol toward their fans.
----------------------------------------
Hours had passed, but there wasn’t a time when it became an eternity through space. Hajime would know. A game of ping-pong with a man the size of a grizzly bear as his opponent was more than enough to keep their spirits alive. Each swing from Paulie came with the sonic boom of several jet engines taped together.
On the other hand, Hajime’s swing came with the sound of one hundred tesla coils on overdrive. Even in their so-called [Unpowered Form], life seemed so fleeting when the ball moved at two frames per blur, according to the footage he wished for Farkas to capture. Space travels were temporary; souvenirs were eternal.
“Hey, Farkas, wanna switch!?” said Paulie with a labored breath, struggling to keep up with the storm barrage despite his paddle whipping around in a similar blur. “Let’s see if your wind can disrupt his lightning.”
Hajime foresaw a hundred scenarios of pure fun on the idea. He tensed his grip, veins bulging twice their size, and with a perfect hit at the center, the ball sliced through the air in jolting mayhem. If Farkas could return the favor with a roaring tornado, he’d be the happiest man alive for today. Luckily, his wish got better.
Farkas swung like an MLB champion on roid rage, his paddle turning into a heap of splinters flying everywhere. The ball had lost nearly all its electric touch and caught itself ablaze toward Hajime’s wide-eyed face. He gasped the moment it made him do a 720° backflip across the room, his head now punched into a mini fridge full of beer cans.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
As though it were a cartoon in the 1940s, Hajime wobbled back and forth with the mini fridge still lodged in him. “Whoa… that was fucking awesome!” he said, pulling it out with ease. “I don’t care if I didn’t react at all. We should do this more often, man.”
The next session to pass the time was a game of foosball, or at least it would’ve been if not for the TV screen flashing again. He could only guess they had now approached the foretold world of experience points, skill trees, and dual-wielding. Swordland seemed like a hair’s breadth away as his heart kicked into high gear over such wonders that awaited.
Alas, the screen had none to give, and what it did present merely brought endless confusion between the three. Hajime squinted and uttered, “What the fuck is that? It’s a guy, I think. I don’t know. Something doesn’t look right.”
“Yeah, I agree,” said Farkas.
It sure wasn’t the king in front of them this time, but they indeed gazed upon a “person” of some sort. Half-naked with white pants, their complexion had an unusual pattern of red, black, and numerous other colors at random spots. It never seemed to mesh together, yet it didn’t have the telltale signs of body paint. It was like their natural tone.
Despite the stranger on the screen, Hajime could’ve chalked them up to being a member of an alien race from a distant gas planet. Perhaps they had sent them a distress call from a million light-years away, but that didn’t explain their other features that told a different story.
The more he stared at their eyes, the more they transformed into lifeless white orbs with pupils as pale as a fog in a forest. Even their hair had this identity crisis of whether it wanted to be short, long, or medium. Frankly, the more he stared at all, the more a chill ran atop his spine. He never knew why, and neither did his friends. It just was.
The entity before them opened its mouth ever so slightly—enough for Paulie to scream like in a game over screen in a horror title. In fact, horror was the best description at the moment. Hajime couldn’t help but recall a tired trend back home of people sharing “scary” videos of fictional boiled victims.
Still, it didn’t hurt to hear what they had to say, and sure enough, it was just as cryptic:
A flower doesn’t fear death when it wilts, but what if it does? The trees won’t miss it. The weeds won’t think of it. Nature is cruel, and nature is existence, and existence is a flower my false heart will always resent. The End. The End. The End. The End. The End. The End. The E̵̗͐̚ë̷̝e̸̼̍̽ḛ̴̿ë̴̳̖́̀̓ȩ̵̣͍͌̎̓e̵̪̅e̵͔̰̥̐̈́ȩ̷̣̱̄̚͝ē̵͔e̶̡̤̥͂͒e̷̘̾͠e̴̋ͅe̷͖̱̮̾̂̽e̸͈̾͛e̷̤̾̔e̴̩͙̜͋e̵̬̠̒̌̏e̸̮̙̿͝ḙ̶̟̐͝e̷̹̓͌ͅ
After a long glitchy mess, the screen displayed the ship’s front and back again. All three sighed in relief from what seemed like an hour of watching a cursed tape. Unfortunately, as Farkas offered another drink to soothe their nerves, the control panel flashed red with the sound of what could only be the mother of ominous warnings.
One by one, the stars behind them shined no more, begotten of a growing darkness that clouded their confused minds each second. Even gas planets nearby followed suit as though they were never there. Hajime looked at the screen, warnings still blaring until he eventually witnessed the source of approaching doom.
Out of the darkness came a hand, trumping any human idea of enormous and encompassing. Hajime wished he never knew it was a hand if it didn’t glow hellish crimson veins like pulsating on a burnt corpse. They stared at Armageddon, and Armageddon stared back.
{Welcome to Beware the Horde} WARNING Its stomach rumbles. Flee for your lives.
image [https://i.imgur.com/sVGYHDM.jpeg]
Farkas, his breath raced to its limit, sprinted to the control panel and tinkered with nearly every button and lever available. “Damnit, how do I make this thing jump this time!?” he said, wiping the river of sheer panic off his forehead.
“You’ve done this before?” replied Hajime, giving him space to collect his thoughts by any means possible.
“Yes, this isn’t my first reality trip. It’s my third, actually. There should be a jump drive button here somewhere.”
He put all his faith in Farkas, seeing how Paulie began having the trembling chills in a curled position. In fairness, the sweat from his brow didn’t quell, either. If it did, he’d be as good as getting crushed to oblivion by the encroaching nightmare. Every glance he took, no matter the rationale, his heart lost more faith in respawning. It just did.
Even if their voyage were some space armada that could obliterate planets en masse, they’d still be flies escaping the swatter to no avail. The void hand reassured that feeling each second, but faith was finally on their side when Farkas yelled, “Yes, I found it! Here we go!”
Faster than Hajime had blinked, the stars on the screen stretched like neon spaghetti as they traversed from one light year to the next. The lack of nauseating g-force caught him by surprise; he could do ballet with his fingers if he wanted to. He turned to Paulie for the great news in joy, but it disappeared once he noticed him pointing with the same chills.
“Guys… it’s still after us,” said Paulie before his face ran pale onto the floor.
A brutal form of naivety was thinking Armageddon would be so kind not to take prisoners. Somehow, the passing light from the stars made the void hand even worse—a writhing mass of deformed “people” with their mouths agape in eternal damnation. Those with eyes served as its veins all along, red and dripping, and before Hajime knew it, they screamed.
What the fuck is this? What the hell is this? He watched on, trembling like a lone child in the dark. “What the fuck are you!?”