It’s dark.

It’s very dark.

Nothing is around me but infinite darkness.

It’s making me anxious, and scared.

I tried my best to look around and find my way but my body felt so heavy as if bound by chains, as if I’m in a swamp. Every movement was stiff and heavy.

“hahahaha, finally found you….” As I was at my wits end, a very deep and creepy voice fragment resounded in the dark world.

“Who are you?” as soon as I found that I was able to move again, I asked towards the void and found my voice echoing back.

“…found you….my little s**d” the voice resounded again, and out of nowhere, chains sprang up and bound my arms, legs, waist, head, and finally they started pulling me down then the last chain went through stabbing my chest where my heart is.

I opened my eyes wide in horror as I see the blood wetting my shirt.

“Aaah!!” I screamed and sit up while my eyes sobered up and looked around.

The cream-colored canopy was fluttering due to the wind coming through the opened window. The magic clock-like item was ticking on one side of the wall. The clock was pointing at the number 2 and I could see the faint silhouette of the moon through the window. All the sound I could hear was the sound of birds cawing and my own ragged breathing. By the time I noticed, my body was full of cold sweat.

It took a while until my brain worked properly and I realized that it all was just a nightmare. Unconsciously, I put my hand on my chest and feel my heart thumping so hard that it could burst.

The scene of the chains and voice kept flashing through my head.

Already wide awake, I decided to get up and walked to the desk at the side of the bed, all the while telling myself that it was all just a dream, and that nothing was real.

There was no dark space.

No chains, and no voice, that it was only because of the anxiety of having been summoned here so suddenly.

I took out a book hidden in the deepest part of the lower drawer where my school textbooks are kept, flipped a few pages, and came to a page that reads ‘Death flag avoiding countermeasures- Kurozawa Serika’ at the top of the page. Just reading the few first letters has an incredible effect of calming me down.

Yep, after living in the palace of Esteral for some time, I have finally come up with my life-saving measures to get away from my(this) life-long worries.

The plan is pretty simple. Here it goes:

-Absorb the training during the first month like a sponge because it’s a precious chance to get accustomed to the common sense of this world.

-learn alchemy as soon as possible.

-Get away from the roots of all evil, Shelton and Enri.

-Either become an alchemist or an adventurer.

For now, this is the most I can come up with due to the possibility of this going differently from the original story of .

Spending time recalling all the vague memories of the game from my previous life, and by the time I noticed, it was already dawn and there was sunlight peeking into the room.

Ah, it is already time for training.

“Yeah, just like that. Move not just your arms, but also your waist and shoulders.”

I took a stance while holding a wooden short sword in one of my hands, and once again used it pry a blow from Shawn-san who was using a wooden sword. Due to the difference in weight and build if I were to use force against force, I’ll definitely lose, so using the concept of soft against hard from when I was taught at the dojo, I was able to fight with Shawn-san by prying his blows and counter them with my own. Considering the length difference between a normal sword and a short sword, without a doubt, Shwan-san has a big advantage going against me but it was made up for with my speed and reflexes.

Shawn-san once again parried my attack, and I had to quickly step back. As if he’s been waiting for it, he followed up with strike which I was barely able to pry away but to my surprise he quickly followed up with another slash while I was still unsteady.

“You’re fast Serika but your balance is bad.” He says as he stopped his sword right before my neck.

“haa, right. It’s my lost.”

I’m already quite accustomed to using a short sword since I’d long picked it as my weapon and trained in it in the dojo, but I just can’t seem to keep my balance well in a fight, and this could be a very grave mistake especially in a fight where one wrong move can be the deciding factor between life and death.

“Still, you are improving pretty fast and you’re already able to keep up with me in a spar. Pretty impressive.” Shawn-san says while lifting up his sword and smiled.

It might be a very late introduction but the knight responsible for teaching me melee combat is Shawn Tousel, with slightly long purplish hair and droopy blue eyes, a knight from the alchemist division. He is also my alchemist teacher. Why?

Huhuhu, I’m the one who specially asked for his guidance after getting to know him back when I visited the alchemist division.

Hmm… It should be when I got to tour the lab of elite alchemists that I stumbled upon his lab with many different glass bottles, shelves upon shelves of books and last but not least, a very beautiful dagger hung on one side of the wall. As my eyes were gleaming admiring the craftsmanship of the dagger and mumbling the very wonders of daggers itself, that was when Shawn-san in his lab coat entered and heard my mumblings. As fellow dagger brethren we quickly got along and by the time we finished chatting the guide was nowhere to be seen. My throat was sore and without noticing Shawn-san ended up not being able to talk for a couple of days due to sore throat after all the excitement of meeting a like-minded fellow in both ‘dagger-ry’ and alchemy.

“Next should be alchemy training, right?”

“Yes, last time you were going to teach me how to make simple potion as well as certain antidotes.”

“That’s right, but last time I told you to try brewing simple drinks with mana to bestow recovery effects, did you try it?”

“I did, but I’m not sure if it’ll work or not.” I reluctantly take out my pseudo lemonade-like drink which was made using a blue fruit in Edea called Krods, which is very similar to oranges, plus a common herb called Solte to give it a nice sour and sweet smell. However, different from the usual blue, the color turned a strange amethyst. It was probably due to the water as well as the process both of which was made by my mana.

“Hmm, what a strange color but what kind of drink is this? Considering that it was made using Krods, it should be quite bitter, right? let me try it.” Shawn-san took the bottle containing the pseudo lemonade from me and looked at it curiously before finally decided to pour himself a cup.

“…!”

“What’s wrong? Is it good? Or is it disgusting?”

Honestly, I’m not too confident about it. I was pretty excited when I was making it, but seeing the finished product totally sapped away my confidence of an accomplished home cook. Even Shelton and Enri were really looking forward to drinking it as I ended up making over four bottles but, alas, I really would cry if it actually tastes bad.

“…this flavor…the sour but sweet aftertaste, even the refreshing smell. Is it Moneta grass? Wait, no Moneta is only grown to the south of the continent of ice, but Moneta can also be transported here, with the appropriate price paid getting Moneta isn’t really a problem. Moreover, there are plenty of adventures who harvest Moneta to sell to various merchants who then transport them to Esteral. Not to mention, the beast country to the west are also a great fan of them, so no matter how rare it might be here, acquiring them isn’t totally impossible …*mumble*…*mumble*”

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Me: “…”

There he goes again, how can he even go off talking so fast like that. It’s like he’s competing in a rap show or something.

“Boo!!”

“!!”

As I was considering whether I should interrupt Shawn-san on his little ‘whether or not it is Moneta’ conjuncture session, my waist was poked and my first reaction was to grab the other party’s hand and went for a shoulder throw.

*Thud*

“Ow!”

“Wawawa, Shelton-san are you okay?” Princess Rosemarie who was following Shelton quickly went to his side.

“Shelton? It’s you?”

“Wait, how could Serika even acquire them if they aren’t even grown here. Then it isn’t Moneta grass but what is it then to have such effects in boosting both the taste and quality? Is it perhaps....” Shawn-san, still in his own dimension.

“I’m okay, Rosemarie. Serika, you...should just train less.” Shelton looked at me as if in deep thought then said the last of his sentence as if speaking to himself.

Train less? What do you mean to say in ‘this’ kind of situation, ‘this’ kind of world where I might drop dead at any moment I grow careless?

I almost can’t resist rebuking and roll my eyes at him when I felt something odd.

“Wait, how come you’re here?” plus with your new entourage?

Shelton is now with princess Rosemarie, Mina, and surprisingly Prisella is alsotagging along. (If you’re wondering who Prisella is, she is one of the senior magicians who summoned us plus Shelton’s future hare- no, girl comrade.)

“I was able to get Prisella to let me off early during today’s magic lesson. By the way, how is your training, Serika?” Shelton turned to smile at Prisella who was walking over here then lowered his smile at the end of his sentence when his smiling eyes fell on the cup in Shawn-san’s hands.

“I’m asking about Enri, idiot. Aren’t you supposed to be training together?”

“Ah, Enri-sama, Kana-sama, and Chizu-sama are still training under miss Bertalia’s guidance. I decided to arrange them under miss Bertalia because I judged that she is the most suitable for teaching Enri-sama and them.” Princess Rosemarie quickly went on to explain as if afraid that I would blame her for separating them.

Actually, I’m incredibly thankful for her splitting them this way. This period of time is the time for them to spread the foundation for the relationship with all the capturable characters so I am planning to take hold of this chance in order to strengthen myself. Plus whenever one of the duo moved during this time, their entourage (excluding Chizu-senpai) would always be following them, so dealing with them both at the same time is so troublesome that I’d rather join Shawn-san on his whatever-it-is-self-discussion. Imo, dealing with both at the same time is just pure mission impossible.

“I trust in your judgement princess. I think I am improving fast thanks to being under Prisella’s guidance, right Prisella?” Shelton

“Not at all, Shelton-sama is learning this fast due to you being such a fast-learner.” Prisella who already walked over heard what Shelton said and corrected him with a big smile making her dimples show looking like a cute squirrel.

Uuuu, so cute. I feel like I would also fall for her had I been a boy.

“Right, Shelton-san is really a genius. I have never seen anyone start using light magic so fast within the first weeks of learning the basics.” Rosemarie also joined on, singing praises of Shelton with eyes gleaming with admiration.

“Yep, as expected of him, isn’t it? He’s always been good at anything he does.” Mina who popped out of nowhere also started joining on praising him while pumping out her chest as if she was proud that she was the genius they were talking about.

“Ahaha, I’m not such a genius, you know. It’s just probably due to the blessing I received when I was summoned.” Shelton

Looking at the scene, I rolled my eyes at them inside my mind. Shelton’s nose must have grown as long as his sword right now from the overwhelming praises. Isn’t it a given that he is a genuine cheat from the start? He ‘is’ the main character, duh?

“*sigh* so what did you come here for again? Shelton-‘sama’?” I stressed the last part over his name to express my irritation over the gallery exhibiting that I never wanted to see, and asked him to just get it over with.

“Ah, Serika, about the drink you were making so enthusiastically these few days, are you done making it yet?” His eyes are totally shining with anticipation while looking at the bottle in Shawn-san’s hands.

“That’s...it’s, it’s not ready yet!” I’m not going to give it to you even though it is already done.

Can’t you feel the piercing gazes from your entourage?? I don’t want to die early due to jealousy Shelton-sama T^T.

“Eeeh~ How come? Didn’t you say it’ll be done by today? And what’s that Shawn-san is holding? Isn’t that your lemonade?” Shelton

That’s why I said no. The gazes hurt!!

“It’s not, definitely not! So, go away for now, it’s time for my next training!” I quickly try to find my escape route which is taking Shawn-san’s hand and pulling him, who was still mumbling stuff, away from the nuclear bomb that is known as Shelton.

“Ah, Serika, you must let me drink it before Enri ok?” By the end of his sentence, he was basically shouting towards me as I’d already walked far away.

“Shawn-san, it’s Solte grass I used in that drink.” After having gotten far enough awayfrom Shelton, I decided to drop a bomb to finish Shawn-san’s self-discussion.

“Ah, exactly, so it was Solte, huh. I am such an idiot. So Solte can also be used in making energy drinks too. Hmm, that’s possible.”

Finally, discussion time ended, huh.

“Eh, where are we? How come I feel like I missed something?”

“No, not at all. You didn’t miss anything Shawn-san. You’re just imagining things. Shall we move on to our next training?” I’m too tired to even talk about what happened. I just want to grow strong quickly, so stop bothering me, why don’t you, Shelton-san?

The result, after that day, Shelton and Enri kept coming over to me asking for the lemonade I made nonstop whenever their training was over or in between breaks.

At night was even more annoying, from nice words to baits, and even by force, they tried to wrest over the remaining bottles of lemonade I kept in my room. I was super annoyed that I decided to ban them from coming over to my room at night to which they had been profusely trying to coax me into changing my mind.

Just what is up with the lemonade? Are they going to die if they don’t drink it or something?

It’s just a few bottles of failed energy drinks or is it that it’s somehow turned into Yggsdrasil potion or something without me noticing? Moreover, with the way the girls are earnestly trying to give them their hand-made drinks every now and then, how would I have the guts to give them my failed ones? I don’t want to become public enemy number 1 right now, you know?