"Oh it's you. Human of another world."
Serias was dumbfounded. How could she knew that. That was pretty impossible to know that he is from another world. His shocked face is clearly amusing to the blonde woman as she put her pale white right hand that look like it didn’t met sunlight for long on her mouth straining herself from laughing, her cheek reddening and bulging like a balloon. Raising his shaking right hand slowly like a Parkinson's patient, with his finger pointing at the woman.
"How did you know I'm from another world?"
"Oh. Did you think I don't know what you've been doing near the portal for a few month. Taking sample here and there. And I don't know if you are a fool or not. Didn't your clothes show it all. It is not from around this place."
Looking at his own clothes and comparing with the woman medieval styled witch robe , he palm faced himself. He did wear his casual clothes and his favorites dark blue sneakers. Thinking about his own foolishness make he want to head-butted his head at the wall.
“Ohh. Hehehe. How foolish of me. I myself lost control for a second there. I’m very for sorry for my impudence. But, what if my clothes actually come from around here?”
“I'm not that unknowledgeable about this world and your world difference. Now, would you come with me and maybe we should talk about various things over a cup of tea, shall we?"
Serias without questioning further trailed the woman's back as they walk through a small double door that serve as entrance to the kitchen of the tower. After being shown the table and chair, Serias walked slowly to it and reluctantly sat down. the after boiling the water on the stove sat down on the chair opposite of him across the dark oak table. what surprised him is the kettle was suspended above the fire which use no firewood or visible fuel.
"Whoa. what did you do with the kettle? How did the fire burn without any wood?"
"Wait.Hold onto your horse young man. One by one. Don't worry, I have all the time in the world to answer you question."
"Young? Just how old are you just to call me young?"
His answer this time was answered with a wooden ladle (only god knew where it came from) knocking down on his head. Grasping his head wth both hand he ducked down in pain. Her eyes glared him with her green eyes;deadly stares. He did really regret his choice of word which brought upon him the pain. Sitting down again on the seat, he apologized.
"I'm sorry for my lack of choice of words."
"Well this time only. Make no mistake as I'll make you suffer next time. And lastly never ask for woman age. Well, what you want to ask after all?"
Sitting with his back straight as a ruler like a good soldier in a marching parade;
"Can I know your name?" was the first thing that he asked like he forgot what had just happened.
"Ah nearly forget about that important thing. Well, my name is Stella and what is yours young man? "
“The name Serias Grey. And by the way I’m 30” he answered Stella question nonchalantly as he was more interested in something else.
"So, what do you do to make that kettle float and the fire keep burning?" Serias asked enthusiastically with his eyes shining with hope like a puppy. That puppy like eyes only make Stella want to once again hit his head with the wooden ladle.
"If I say magic would you believe me?"
"Magic?!"
"In this world, the world called Kosmos, magic is something that defies logic of your world which has no magic. Powered by energy called mana and the manipulator of mana is called mage, wizard, witch and sorcerer.” Stella started her lecture before being interrupted.
“Wait, hang on a second. How did you that my world did not have any magic?”
“Isn’t it obvious with your reaction of asking me question about the fire and the kettle. And in addition, I’m also from Earth, not from this world. So of course I would know about our world. The world with magic was something out of fantasy.”
“So you are also from Earth. How did you end up here?”
“Well, it is also like what you experienced. I stumbled upon a portal to this place a long time ago. If I must say it’s been about more than 1000 years if it is calculated using earth time. But the time flow between these two worlds is ever changing and not constant as I only have been living here around 500 years.”
“Wait....What? 500 years. Isn’t that practically very old...” and the wooden ladle in Stella hand came flying to his head knocking him down the chair onto the black stone floor.
Stella stand up from her chair and walk toward the stove that has finished boiling the water in the kettle. Pouring the hot water into the teapot containing tea leaves, she drain the hot water into the sink after a minute or so to release the aroma of the tea leaves. She then brought the teapot in a tray with two cup, levitating the tray by her side. Putting the tray slowly on the table, she could see Serias had already sat on his seat again waiting for her with his face contorted with smile.
“Next time you mention my age, prepare yourself to at least dying.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll never mention it again. So could you please stop staring dagger at me? It’s really uncomfortable.” Serias slowly rub his aching head with his left hand.
“Continuing from where I left, I knew almost all the latest exploit of human back on earth.”
“That means you could open the portal?”
“No. But I could only use prying magic to see what have happened on Earth. And unfortunately for you the portal only open once in a few hundred years when the mana concentration is very concentrated and a few condition is met. So you've got to live here after all.”
Serias let out an exasperated sigh. He picked up the teapot and pour down the content into both cup. Sipping the aromatic tea he lean his back on the chair.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
"I can't go back huh. Well, whatever. I have another question. Can I use magic?"
"Did you drink the water from the river near this tower?"
"Well yes I had drink it. What about it?" Serias show an
"If you have then it's good. You knew that I also came from Earth, where our world did not have any magic. A select few of human on Earth have the capability to store mana and they were in fact my predecessor; a guardian of this place, The Archivist of Magic. We, for about 2000 years have catalogued and archived the history and the magic of this world from the end of Precursor's Age until now and you are one of the people from Earth that could store mana in their bodies. So, the portal when it spawn somewhere, would release mana to its surrounding and and see who would react to the portal and enter it."
"Okay I get it, but why the earthen people, why not this world's human?"
"The human of this world has a tendency to use the magic in this tower to cause destruction in the world and that is the last thing the first Archivist want. He had enough of the war at the end of the Precursor’s Age. So he go the roundabout way of summoning a dimensional portal to bring someone from another world. It's not an easy task considering the mana needed and the magic ritual used to summon only someone from a civilized world. My predecessor told me that the first Archivist took 300 years to prepare the ritual and another 200 years to accumulate enough mana to activate the portal."
"Hey, you still didn’t answer my question about the water."
"Oh, the water. The water as you know is no ordinary water. Its is literally liquid mana dissolved in water but its property is still like water. Drinking the water wikl make your mana pool filled to the brim with mana and drinking it gradually make you generate mana fast enough to use first level spell that the archivist use."
Continuing her lecture, Stella told Serias that his arrival had already make him an Apprentice Archivist. Not understanding it, another wooden ladle came flying to his face. This time he barely manage to dodge in time.
"Hou. Impressive reaction time. Next time I'll make it faster so you wont be able to even dodge. What I mean by thing the thing I explain before is the one who came here through the portal is fated to continue the responsibilities of safeguarding this place with their life."
“That means that I was fated to be an archivist of this old tower when I step into this very land. Urgh, I only feel regret thinking about it.”
“Don’t worry about that, as your predecessor I’ll make you go through hell until you spit blood to make you as my successor. Time is a thing that you would have plenty. We the archivist was granted a long life span as the mana prolonged our own life force. In short we’ll never die as long as we are not killed in one shot. If you lost a limb or two it would just regrow but it will take some time. Not something that you should worry about.”
“Not something to worry about my ass. Losing a limb was something that certainly painful.” Was what he thought. Stella would certainly be in fury if she knew what Serias was thinking.
“Longer lifespan meaning a lot of research could be done and with magic I could try experimenting on something that can’t be done before. Not something that I would let go.” Is what he was thinking while his small lips grinned. Stella just frown seeing her would be disciple like that.
“Another thing I want to tell you is, this archive was only updated every few hundred years when an archivist was sure that this place would not be trespassed by anyone. Keeping a ward working for tens of years is not an easy task as you’ll get busy cataloguing and gathering new magic that had appeared during the time lapse of hundreds of years. By the way, as an archivist we could use all type of magic regardless of attribute, a courtesy of our second archivist that modified the magic ritual of the portal so his successor could use all type of magic making it easy for us to test any magic that is worthy enough to be put in the archive.”
From the open windows Serias could see the two sun, side by side had already sunk beyond the horizon leaving only a little specks of orange and red light which illuminated the clouds. Stella stood up from the chair and step slowly toward the windows. She close the windowpane but let the curtain as it is. Serias put his face on the table, tired of the torrent of information that entered his head. He brought his head up and saw Stella looking at his face with a contorted smile on her face.
“For now just go and take a bath. The bathroom is at the end of the hallways and the spare clothes could be found in the room on the second floor. Just rest for today. We would take our time talking tomorrow.”
Stella turned to face the door from where they had entered earlier. Only the slow thud of her boots could be heard after she left through the door. Serias thought that she maybe had return to her room. He started walking toward the hallway which is on the opposite side of the door before.
After the bath and climbing the stairs to the room Stella had told him, he found himself in big room fully furnished with a closet and king sized bed. Stella must have clean the room while he is in the bathroom. Serias thought of thanking her tomorrow as he let his tired body land on the soft bed. Only a moment later a snoring sound could be heard.
-------------------------------------------------------
Hello dear readers. this is my first time writing a ff. So I would thank to all of you if i could get any feedback. If you spot any grammatical mistake please point it and I'll try to repair it. The last thing is i hope that you enjoy reading this ff.