With everything prepared for a journey, Key and Louise strap their backpack tightly and stand in front of their mother that’s finishing the magical portal for them. Because everything’s out of the ordinary, both of them can’t help but shake on their knees. However, they have different reasons to do so.

“I can’t believe I’m going into another world. This is something that’s way beyond my wildest dreams.” Key said while holding on his backpack’s strap tightly. He’s a bit nervous looking at the glowing red lines on the wall that’s written with her mother’s blood.

“It’s about time I get something interesting happen in my life! Marzenthura, here I come! OW!” Louise’s so excited about going into another world. She’s so hyper that her brother had to hit her in the back of her head to calm down.

After finishing her preparations to activate the magic portal, their mother looks at her children once again. As she flicks her fingers, a small brown pouch that looks like a miniature sack appears on her left hand.

Before saying anything, she takes something small out and then gives it to Key.

“This pouch contains a dozen pieces of silver. If something unexpected happens, use it properly. It’s been a long while since I left Marzenthura, but I think the currency rates haven’t moved that much yet.”

While saying that, she goes to Louise and puts something on her left ear. When her hand leaves her ear, an earring made of gold with the shape of a flower with a ruby center is hanging. Looking at the mirror that’s on the fridge, Louise can’t help but get thrilled to see how beautiful the jewel is.

“Thanks mom! This is so pretty!” she hugged her mom while jumping, and then she added “Is it real gold?”

Their mother smiles at her whole heartedly and then say, “Yes, it is. But please don’t lose it, its pair is somewhere in our house there. That earring will serve as the key to that room.”

“So it also has magic!? COOL!” said Louise with sparkling eyes.

But it wasn’t just the earring her mother took out from the pouch, she also showed a small black marble and offered it to Key.

“What’s that?” Key asked curiously while looking at the marble.

Her mother smiles and puts it on Key’s hand. “Swallow it whole.” She instructed.

Key finds the marble suspicious, but the fact that his mother offered it herself, it’s not going to kill him. Thinking like that, he readies himself and put it on his mouth.

Though it looked dry, when it entered his mouth, it is actually super slippery which made it easy to swallow for him.

He makes a cough as it hurt his throat half-way. He then looks at his mother and asks what it is again.

“That marble just now is called [Pill of Ideal]. It gives the person his or her ideal look after consuming.” She explained gleefully.

Just when Key was about to make a reaction, he suddenly freezes when he felt something happening to his body.

Looking at his hands, he can see that his skin tone became slightly tanned. Then his hair grew long with the length not longer than 30 inches. Not only that, some strands of his hair became violet colored that it gave him a villain-ish look. He could also feel that his stomach is feeling thick.

As he traces his stomach, he could feel three pairs of lumps that weren’t there before.

“… Are these, abs?” he asked.

After saying that, Louise quickly puts her hand on her brother’s stomach to confirm what her brother just said. Feeling that abs, Louise’s eyes grew in awe and pressed them even more.

“That pill is amazing! It literally gives you abs too!” she exclaimed.

Key flicks away her hand and ignores her. He then looks at himself in the mirror and see that he really changed from his previous look because of the pill.

“I look… nearly like my Skyrim avatar.” While looking at himself, he couldn’t help but laugh in amazement. He clenches his fists and could feel that his strength also increased.

“Mom! Is there more of that!?” asked Louise in excitement.

But her mother shrugs her shoulders while shaking her head. “The pill is super expensive and I doubt they’re still making it. The Pill of Ideal is hard to make so only nobles like us can afford it. Well, to be exact, not all nobles.”

“So it counts as a rare item then.” Key clarified.

Key wanted to make a joke, but it made the room quiet instead. It wasn’t because of the thing he said, but because of how he looks like instead. Smiling openly with his new appearance looks weird, to be exact, he looks like a villain.

Before saying anything, Louise puts her hand on Key’s shoulder and look at him straight into his eyes.

“Don’t ever, EVER giggle ever again.” She said with outmost seriousness. “It looks weird.” She added.

On the other hand, Key’s using all his will power to not punch his sister on the face. However, instead of a punch, he makes a comeback with words.

“You look weirder.”

Immediately after that, he gets his hair pulled by his sister in rage. He knows that the word ‘Weird’ will enrage her because of her dark history.

“Stop fighting! I’m not done yet explaining some things.” Their mother breaks them up of their childish fighting. And after giving them a stern look, both of them calmed down. Rather than a stern look, it looked like a demon’s glare from Key and Louise’s point of view.

After letting out a sigh, she continued “About the money, one gold coin is equal to 15 silver coins, and silver coin is equal to 20 coppers. Also, big copper coin is worth 50 coppers. Don’t forget that. And also, if things don’t follow with my plan, use the money to stay in an Inn. As long as you contact the academy first, you should be fine for two nights.”

“So the first priority here is to go to the academy huh. What academy are we talking about?” Key asked.

“The academy is called Half-Moon Academy. This is a school for qualified people that have good affinity with magic. Most nobles are enrolled here. Even enrolling in the middle of the school year, it’s not weird for nobles at all. It happens every time.”

“So no main-character-like development huh…” Louise murmured.

“Also, the headmaster is a friend of ours. He’ll help you in everything you’ll need to start your lives there. Don’t rely on him of course because it’s embarrassing.” Their mom told them while poking their noses.

“Yes.” They answered in unison.

Flicking her fingers again, two rugged cloaks appeared on both of her arms. She then hands them to Key and Louise.

“Wear this when you get to the other side. Don’t let your clothes stand out.” She instructed.

Looking at the cloak, Key speaks out his opinion. “But doesn’t this make us stand-out instead?”

Before answering, his mother giggles while dusting off some dust on the cloak. “You may look suspicious in that cloak, but commonsense is different there. Nobody will try to approach you while wearing that.”

“Great!” Key exclaimed.

Then after that, their mother turns to the magic portal. After that, she activates it by clapping her hand and concentrating her mana into it.

While opening the portal, she starts talking to Key.

“Just so you can understand magic a bit, I’ll tell you these 3 small steps to easily grasp the logic behind it. First, you have to ‘see’ the magic. Second, you will try to ‘understand’ the image of what you see. And third, the most important, is to ‘believe’ in your magic. No matter how strong or weak your magic is, if you don’t believe in it, the magic will lose its worth. That’s the reason why there are strong and weak magicians. Gate open! ”

Like she timed it correctly with her words, she opens her arms and the wall splits in two opening a large door to an open forest.

Like standing in front of a cliff, a gust of strong fresh grassy air hits their face. The smell of fresh air tingle their noses that it made Louise sneeze cutely.

“The air smells so clean!” said Louise while covering her nose.

Key slowly walks into the forest while looking at it in full amazement. The fact that a door to another world got created by magic and the smell of fresh air from an unknown forest of another world amazed him so much that he’s at a loss for words. All he could do is just walk into the forest and touched the tree nearby to confirm whether it’s real or not.

“It’s not a dream…” Key said to himself while tracing the bark of a tree.

Looking at him, her mother smiles proudly with her arms crossed. “Welcome to my world.”

Both Louise and Key look at their mother in surprise. After a few moments, both of them smile at her.

“I can’t hold the gate open that long. So I guess you two have everything you need, right?” she clarified.

Key and Louise nodded. “I think we have everything we need.” Key added.

Then after that, their mother waves them goodbye. “Then you two should go now. Just go straight east and you’ll find a road heading to Dalserieve Duchy capital which is north of the road. Remember, you must arrive there before sunset. And also, don’t talk to strangers. You’ll get into trouble if you-”

“We’re not kids anymore, mom.” Cutting her words half-way, Key and Louise answered in unison.

A bit surprised, then closes her eyes and nods to herself. “Right, you two aren’t kids anymore.”

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Like a sliding door getting closed, the gate closes the bridge between two worlds collapses in front of the mother and her children. All three of them can only do is to watch the connection between them disappear from each other.

As it gradually disappears, their mother gave them her parting words.

“I love you two.” She said before the gate finally closed.

Hearing those words, both of them couldn’t help but feel warm inside. Though a bit awkward, they feel happy about it.

However, their atmosphere got ruined when Louise suddenly gasps in shock while looking at where the gate used to be.

“What’s wrong!?” Key asked in a panic.

With a pale face and buckets worth of sweating, she looks at her big brother with a nervous expression. “I forgot the toilet paper.”

***

It has been exactly 30 minutes after Key and Louise arrived in Marzenthura. With their mother’s instructions along with the sun’s guidance, they head themselves towards east of the forest.

Like their mother instructed, they didn’t waste time and hurried to the place where they should be heading, but there’s also one more reason why they’re in a hurry. Rather than a reason, they call it a problem.

“I can’t believe we forgot to ask mom about how toilet here works. If I didn’t bring my own set of toilet paper, you’d be in big trouble!” Key yelled while holding in his anger.

With a teary eyed face, Louise answered, “Don’t talk like it’s also not your problem! You also need to go to the toilet sometimes too!”

“Yes! I also do need to go to the toilet too, but not as often as you. I’m not a girl you know!”

“How dare you blame my gender! Apologize to every woman of every world!”

“Shut up! You’re noisy!”

“No, you shut up!”

Both of them glared at each other like looking at the worst thing they’ve seen in their lives. But even though they’re fighting like there’s no tomorrow, they still feel that they’re brother and sister deep inside.

And as the big brother, Key looks away first and walks a bit farther than Louise.

“This won’t end if we just keep arguing like this. Let’s just go to the capital to get this over with!” he said while holding in his anger.

Louisa puffed her cheek while looking at her big brother’s back. She wanted to hit him with something, but since she can’t find anything she can use, she gave up. “Fine!” she yelled.

Annoyed of each other, they continue to walk towards east.

While following her brother, Louise looks at her surroundings in puzzlement. “Are you sure we’re going east?” she asked.

Pausing for a moment, Key looks at his little sister while pointing a tree’s shadow. “The shadow is tilted far west and the leaves and grasses are still moist. I’m guessing that we’re about to hit noon so we’re going the right direction.”

After saying that, Louise claps her hand like she’s mocking him whilst actually clapping honestly. “As expected from a boy-scout, you sure know your stuff.” She commented.

Instead of feeling embarrassed, he gets annoyed by his sister’s words. Instead of giving a reply, he ignores her and continues to walk.

“Let’s just hurry up. We must at least reach the road before noon.” He said while picking up a broken stick.

Louise knows that her brother is just feeling embarrassed deep inside. She just held-in her smug face until her brother turned from her direction. She wants to tease him, but she knows that it isn’t the time for that.

As they continue their walk, Louise notices that Key has been stretching his arms while holding out the stick. Not only that, she can even hear him murmuring something.

“What are you doing?” she asked in pure curiosity.

Key looks over his shoulder for a moment and then looks at the front again.

“I’m trying to do what mom did before.” He said while concentrating on the stick.

“What mom did before?” she repeated.

Key puts more concentration on the stick. After that, he says something completely unknown to both of them.

“Ersha Selti Arare Evensa Vur Set’al Kera Wel!” he yelled out and tossed the stick to the air. And at that moment, the stick freezes mid-air like time itself stopped for the stick.

Both Key and Louise become shocked at what happened to the stick.

“How’d you pull that one off, Key?” Louise asks her brother with glowing eyes.

However, Key can only tilt his head while looking at the stick. “I’m not exactly sure.” He said while touching the stick.

“What do you mean you’re not sure? You did that right?”

“Well, I did. But I just copied what mom did back home. I wasn’t able to hear it properly, but after she gave me a part of her language memory, it probably came with fragments of her knowledge of magic. Though it’s just my own speculation, I think mom gave us something other than the ability to understand their language.”

Louise holds her chin with one hand while trying to search her own memory. “You’re probably right. Mom’s quite a secretive person and we don’t understand how she thinks.” And then added, “But memorizing it proves you really are a genius.”

“Well, leaving magic aside, I think I’m hearing things too.” Key said while holding the stick and lifting the magic off it.

“Hearing things?” Louise clarified.

Key looks around the forest like looking for something. Seeing her brother doing that, she also looks around to try to find what they’re looking for.

“It must be my imagination.” Key said to himself.

Louise looks at her brother with a disappointed look. “Where’s your other-world enthusiasm?” she asked in full annoyance.

But Key just ignores her and continues walking. “My enthusiasm will come when probably after we get to the capital.” He care-freely said so.

As they continue their walk, Key notices something strange in the air. The air has some green flickering sparks that’s so dim and small one could not see it properly. Noticing an oddity, he didn’t immediately panic but calmly analyzed them.

He swings his stick towards these flickering green lights. But instead of moving out of the way, the spark passes through the stick like it’s not there.

“Weird…” he muttered.

After that, he looks at the ground to see if it’s the same.

As he expected, the ground also has sparks flickering on it. Unlike the ones in the air, its colored orange and some are clustered together in random places.

“You’ve been looking pretty serious for a while now. What do you see?” Louise asks her brother while leaning her body in front of him.

She knows and understands her brother better that anyone. She can even understand what he’s thinking and what he feels just by looking at his face. Seeing her brother making such a serious face, she knows he’s thinking about something important.

“Do you remember what mom said about she called mana?” he asked while crouching in front of a cluster of orange sparks.

“I remember it somehow. What about it?”

“Well, before we were sent here, I got to see what it’s like. It doesn’t have a form exactly, but it somehow looks like sparks like these.” He said while pointing the cluster.

However, Louise can only tilt her head while looking confused.

“Are you sure you’re not seeing things?” she asked while sounding concerned.

Normally, Key would get angry at such question. However, the current situation is different from usual. So instead of answering with sarcasm, he closes his eyes and thinks about it deeply.

When he stands up, he looks at the sky while breathing in the fresh air.

“I think this is what mom meant when she said I ‘awakened’.” He makes a conclusion of what he had been thinking for a while now.

Realizing the meaning behind her brother’s words, her eyes sparkle in amazement. “So you see this world differently from me!? COOL!” she said excitedly.

“It’s not much different actually. Everything around just seem to sparkle in my eyes like there are silver dusts scattered everywhere.”

“Even so! That’s something pretty cool. It’s like something that came out of a fantasy story.”

Key doesn’t know how to answer his sister’s excitement. So he just looks away like he didn’t see anything.

“Let’s just hurry up!” he said while picking up the pace.

However, when he reached a certain distance, he suddenly heard something which made him pause for a moment. But since the sound he heard came from a distance, he isn’t sure whether he heard something or not.

“I heard it again. Did you hear that?” He turns to Louise.

Unlike last time, Louise also makes a serious look while looking at her brother. Most likely she heard the same sound too.

“I heard it too.” She affirmed.

Looking at the north side of the forest, they tried to listen to that direction while hiding behind a tree. The reason why they did that is that, it may possibly come from a dangerous creature or something else.

However, when they listened to it carefully, their eyes grew in surprise.

“….elp~!” the voice echoed.

Looking at each other, they confirm whether they heard the same thing at the same time.

“Did you hear someone calling for help?”

“Yeah, I heard it. It seems that it came from a girl!” While saying that, she stands up from crouching and heads towards where the voice came from. However, her brother grabbed her arm and stopped her.

“What if it’s a trap?!” he shouted at his sister.

“What are you talking about? We’re in the middle of a forest. Do you think someone would try to attack us here?” she shouted back.

Key thinks about what her sister said and takes into account the current situation is. Not waiting to let her brother finish his thoughts, she swings away her brother’s arm and dashes off to where the voice came from.

Seeing his sister running towards danger, he gives chase and forgets about the danger of it. “Ah damn it! To hell with it!” he groaned.

Key chases his sister whose speed is not like a normal girl’s. As expected of a track-and-field player, he thought to himself. But since he’s a guy, it’s normal that he can catch up to Louise.

“Hey! Wait a min-!”

“Shh! be quiet!”

Just when he was about to call out to her, Louise stops and makes him shut up my covering his mouth. Since he’s breathing heavily from all that running, he sweeps off her hand from his mouth.

Louise on the other hand, she looks around while trying to listen to the voice. And when it called out again, both of them had their ears ring and look to that direction. Not only the voice sounded clear this time, it sounded very near too.

Louise and Key looks at each other. After giving each other a nod, both of them dashes to where the voice came from.

“She’s pretty close” Said Louise while breathing heavily.

“Yeah, but it’s dangerously quiet for some time now. But I don’t think there are people hiding. Let’s just not drop our guard and keep our senses sharp.” Key said while looking around the forest.

And when they finally reached a certain distance, they pause for a moment and try to listen to the voice if it tries to call out again.

However, unexpectedly, they hear something different from what they heard before.

“Uuuu~ no one’s coming. I’m an idiot for trying to call for help.” The voice said with a crying tone.

Hearing that, the siblings look at each other with a dumbfounded expression.

Not only that the voice was nearby, it’s talking in Laime. Thanks to their mother’s magic, they’re able to understand it.

“I’m sorry Miss Cherlaine, I think I won’t be coming back anymore… uuuuuu~”

As Key and Louise listen to the voice, they slowly look up the tree in front of them. And there, they could see a woman hanging in from a tree branch with only her legs barely hooked on it. Her brownish long hair is hanging down along with her arms. Her face is cute, but her crying expression is ruining it. Not only that, her attire is of a maid’s which is black and white that looks like of Victorian era. It goes without saying that her skirt is hanging upside-down showing her pink underwear shamefully. She can’t be called lucky or unlucky, but the word ‘unfortunate’ fits her situation.

Key and Louise looks at each other to confirm what they actually saw.

“There’s a girl hanging from a tree.” Key said bluntly.

“There’s a girl hanging from a tree.” Louise repeated.

Again, they look at the girl who is hanging while crying. This time, they’ll try to communicate with her.

“You can speak Laime, right? Talk to her.” Key suggested.

“You can speak it too you know, but I guess I can do it.”

Louise didn’t want to do it, but since it can’t be helped, she stands directly below the hanging stranger while looking up to her.

“Excuse me, are you alright miss?” she called out.

Suddenly hearing a stranger’s voice, the girl stops sobbing and looks towards the ground. Seeing Louise and Key, she starts to cry louder than before.

“Thank the gods! *hick* I thought *hick* that no one would *hick* help me in the middle *hick* of the forest!” she said while crying out her heart.

Louise doesn’t know how to react to such flood of emotion. So instead, she continues talking to her while ignoring her shameful crying.

“We’re going to help you. Just calm down and wait for us to get up to you.” She said while hitting her brother to make him start climbing.

Seeing Key, the girl’s eyes grew in surprise while looking at his face. The next moment, she turns pink and starts panicking while pushing up her skirt to hide her underwear.

Noticing that her rash actions are making the branch unstable, Key becomes panicked which made him shout “STOP!” with a heart-stopping voice. Because of that, the girl stops moving like she’s instantly frozen like a dead fish.

“C-calm down.” Unlike before, Key noticed that he was too loud so he uses a softer tone instead. “I know you’re embarrassed and all, but that’s not you should be thinking right now. You’re quite up high and you’ll literally die if you fall. So just calm down, I’m not looking at you’re pink underwear.”

“So you are looking!” she cried. Luckily, she’s not moving rashly like before.

Louise didn’t tolerate her brother’s insensitiveness so she gives him a smack on the back which he deserves.

“That hurt!”

“It’s supposed to hurt!”

After glaring at each other for a moment, Key then proceeds to climb up the tree carefully while looking at the branch the girl’s hanging from.

Since Louise has nothing to do, she decides to have a talk with the stranger.

“By the way, what’s your name? I’m Luvienne Dué Chardelier.” she asks while looking at her face.

Hearing Louise’s name, the stranger’s eyes grew in surprise. After that, she tries her best wiping off the tears off her face to try to look better that she is now.

“I-I didn’t know you were a noble! I’m so sorry for shamelessly asking you for help!” she apologizes in a panic.

Key paused for a moment and look at Louise, but Louise just shrugs her shoulders saying she didn’t do anything.

“Y-yeah… I am a noble. So, what’s your name?” she asked again.

While making a gesture of bowing by swinging a bit, she answers Louise’s question with a respectful tone.

“My name is Ghena. I’m a maid of the Golderitani Household.”