A group of four people is walking in a hall. A knight wearing very sturdy and luxurious armor is leading ahead, followed by two girls and a cat. No one is speaking anything, and the silence lasts until the group arrives in front of a door.

“This is your room, ladies. Are you sure you don’t want separate rooms? Most of the heroes have their own rooms and a group of servants serving for them. Although you are not them, you are still our high-esteem guests. You can receive the same treatment as the heroes.” The knight says, being open enough to talk about the heroes.

“Thank you so much for your consideration. You don’t have to worry that much. We are pretty much like sisters and prefers to stay together. And you also don’t need to assign a group of servants to us. We are not used to having a bunch of people following us. You can just assign one or two persons outside for us to call when we need something.” Yuuko politely declines the offer.

“As you wish. You have fought hard today already. Please rest well. And also, breakfast will be delivered to your room in the morning.” The knight opens the door then leaves.

Entering the room, it has a big canopy bed enough for three people to sleep together. The room is quite extravagant with all the furniture available, wardrobe, sofa, working desk. There is even a bathroom inside. It has all the convenience of a 5-star hotel room aside from the TV and electronics. An unexpected thing in a medieval fantasy world.

Removing the armors and cloaks, the girls and a cat sit together and begin their meeting.

“What are you trying to do, Lexar? Building a stable road connecting between two worlds. Is that something we can do?” Yuuko objects the idea.

“Throwing aside the possibility of doing it, are you serious on building a stable connection between two worlds? You should have known clearly what that guy is. He is pretty much a dictator, and the one who likes to use force at that. What if he is trying to invade our world? Having one big villain is enough, we don’t want to also face the invasion from another world.” Makoto expresses their worry.

Lexar looks at both girls’ expression. Seeing their worried face, it is an expected reaction. His negotiation is not different from inviting a mafia boss to his house, flaunting the richness while exposing how weak the security is. The other side has a fantasy army, capable of casting magic and doing amazing skills. Each solder is stronger than the most trained soldier in Earth, and guns can be useless against this fantasy army. If by any chance, Xavier knows that the army on Earth is much weaker than his army, there is a risk of an invasion on Earth, considering how ambitious he is. From those facts alone, it is easy to see that bringing the people here to their world is a bad idea.

However, Lexar is not really worried. His negotiation may look like he was begging to let them use the summoning ritual to get home. The benefit for the emperor to travel to the other side seems to be much greater than for the group to travel back to this world. The risk of danger is also higher for Earth than this world too. That’s if certain facts are not taken into account.

“Don’t worry, Makoto, Yuuko. I know what you two are afraid of. However, the risk of an invasion is actually very, very small. Girls, remember the risk we have to take when we go back to our old world.” Lexar hints.

“That’s it!” Makoto claps her hand “If we travel back to our world, the program in our world will malfunction. If we don’t remove it, bad consequences will occur. And since this world’s residents’ bodies heavily rely on the program, without the support of the system, they will have a greater backlash than us when arriving at our world.”

That’s right. The reason for all of Lexar’s confidence for the whole negotiation is that this world’s native can’t live without the support of the RPG system.

The people of this world, when they are born, their body is already deeply integrated as one with the program and bit, and grow up by using them. These two components need the support of this world’s system to operate properly. If they are out of the reach of the system, their body will malfunction. The effect will be the same as throwing normal humans into space.

“And with their inability to enter our world, they will not be a threat anymore if they try to invade our world. Amazing! You actually thought of that and used it to plan out the entire negotiation in that short time while under pressure. With us practically desperate to find the way back home, you offered all the possible benefits you could think if the road exists. Those benefits tempted that emperor to think about expanding his ambition if he can establish a plan to travel between worlds. Since he is an arrogant man, he probably thought that we were a bunch of naïve and stupid kids, unknowingly betrayed our world. But in reality, all of his plans for his domination will crumble when he realizes his strength becomes non-existent over there. Amazing! You have managed to get us to reach that important summoning ritual while taking no risk at all.” Yuuko becomes happy as she realizes the cat’s plan.

“Correct. If that emperor truly intends to invade our world, he will have a taste of his medicine if he tries to do so while we successfully go back to our world. However, that’s only the worst case scenario. To be honest, I am seriously thinking about the alliance between us and that guy. I really intend to commence the trade of knowledge between two worlds. And the road to go back to this world has more uses to us than you think.” Lexar slowly explains.

“First, we need a backing of an organization, a very big organization at that. The fight between us and that Shindo guy is just only a small conflict. The calamity that is going to occur in 1 year is the real deal. We don’t know what kind of troubles we will meet on the way, and we can’t just fight by ourselves. It’s not only fighting. We need someone to help us with gathering information, looking for something, investigation, research and so on. Those are works that will take a lot of time, and you girls are not experts or someone with connections to do them. That’s why we need relationship and help from a big organization. The first choice is the government.

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When we arrive back at our world, what we have to do is to contact the government, someone from the higher up. It will be a tough job to convince them. Our special power alone may not be enough to convince them of supernatural things, but the existence of people from another world, and the path connecting two worlds cannot be ignored. The government cannot absolutely ignore an unknown country that can attack them at any moment. And when they learn they can also move to another world, they will also be attracted by that idea. Think about it. An unknown world with unknown material, unknown resource, and unknown technology, and there is magic there. There will be some big people attached to those and the government will move to investigate this world. The best scenario is that we can act as an intermediate between two countries. That way, we will meet a lot of important people and gain enough trust to investigate what we want.”

Both the girls nod at his plan, agreeing with it.

“The second choice is obviously Xavier. Although he looks like a dictator at glance, he is a smart person. It will be good if we can be friendly with each other. He will be a powerful force when we need people to fight with us.”

“Wait a minute! You really mean to be friendly with that arrogant guy? I admit that he is strong. However, can he survive when he goes to our world? What can he do there, really?” Yuuko asks.

“His strength does not only rely on the RPG system alone. He has other types of strength too. Remember when he analyzed the animium, that means he is also knowledgeable on different kinds of strength. Not to mention, he is also very strong, even without the system, he may still survive and adapt to that environment. And even if he is weakened without the system, he can still put up a fight by using those different kinds of strength.” Makoto explains.

“Then isn’t it dangerous? Does this mean he and his army can still fight in our world too?” Yuuko raises her voice.

“The risk is still there, but it is minimized a lot already. That guy is a special case, and perhaps several other individuals in this world. However, that does not extend to the army. The large portion of people here can only rely on the RPG system. Only a few people can come over and still survive and fight properly. With that few number, it is impossible to do an invasion.” Lexar explains “And besides, if we want him to regain his strength in our world, we have a method to do that, right Makoto?”

“Yeah.” Makoto nods “I figure out that we still need our strength and skills gained from this world to fight in our world. That’s why I have devised a method to let the program work while without the system. I’m still working on it, but once it’s done, I will tell you.”

“And remember, if we are friendly with Xavier, we have another force that can really help us, the summoned heroes. With the support of Japan when the relationship between two countries is done, the importance of the heroes will be lessened. We can negotiate and let some of the heroes back home. First, they can fight, and second, if they know their world is in danger, they are more willing to protect their own world than fighting here.” Lexar points out.

Both girls are silent, digesting his plan in their heads. A few minutes pass, and Yuuko opens her mouth first.

“Amazing. You have thought so far for the future. Honestly, if it was me, I could just only ask for the emperor to let us see the summoning ritual. And if he declined, I would have to agree to a lot of his conditions and obey his orders, as an exchange for the condition to use the summoning ritual. I could have never thought of any advantage or useful things to exchange with that guy, and the situation would be very bad. “

“Un, me too. I also think the same. To be honest, at that time when he intimidated us, my head basically became empty. I couldn’t think of anything and just stood there like a doll. I may have nodded at his request to work for him. But, thanks to you, we have managed to get nearer to our objective without having to obey any of his unreasonable demand. If it wasn’t for you, we would be helpless and in a big trouble now.” Makoto says.

“It’s kinda late to say it now. Thank you very much, Lexar. You have been guiding us for so long. You gave us our power, helped us escape the school, fought together in the hospital, teaching us how to survive in the wild, and planning the long course for us and our world. You have been a great help to us.” Yuuko then bows to the cat. “I promise that I will not let you down after all you have done for us. I will fight well, to survive and save our world.”

“I’m the same. Thank you very much, Lexar.” Makoto sits next to Yuuko then bows to the cat. “We have come this far, all thanks to you. Please continue to guide us in the future.” Her word is full of respect, unlike the playful tone she often uses.

“You girls …” Lexar is lost at words. Being thanked so sincerely, he feels very touched. He was helped many times when he reached old age, troubling his kids and grandkids a lot while not being much help to them. It has been a very long time since he has done much for someone else and is thanked. A warm feeling fills his chest.

“I also need to thank two girls, too. Thanks to you, I was able to find my life meaningful again. I could have not come this far without you girls either.” Lexar says while raising his head, then he realizes the girls are already asleep while still kneeling on the bed.

(They must have been really tired.) Lexar thinks.

Such a bad posture to sleep. The cat jumps on their back and drags their collars to lie out properly on the bed. Seeing their soundly sleeping faces, Lexar cannot help but sigh deeply. They remind him of his children when at their age.

He had been a strict father, always telling them to do this and that, not to do this and that. He had been hard on them, teaching them a lot of things, pushing them to become mature than their peers. Perhaps, in the other parents’ eyes, he had always been doing the right things. His children were excellent, had a lot of praiseworthy qualities. Their academy work was top of the school, they held the leadership position of the elite classes, they were mature and knew how to deal with everyone in the appropriate way. Everyone praised them and they were considered perfect children in their eyes.

But thing always comes with a cost. He had too high expectation of them. His children had been under pressure and stressed all the time. They were good kids and knew how to hide it, not wanting to disappoint me. He hadn’t realized it until one of his children collapsed. She was diagnosed with the stomach ulcer and had to be hospitalized for a few days. That’s when he learned that he should not put on too much responsibility and pressure on the children.

Makoto and Yuuko, they are really amazing girls. Despite being afraid of death, they can still face it head on and fight. And then they were thrown into a strange world, having to survive without the basic need of a modern human. If it were other people, they would have thrown a tantrum after a day or two. However, these girls endured it all without any complaint. But with all these intense fighting, their stress definitely is piling up. Worse enough, the future fighting will be even more intense. They still don’t show it on their faces yet, but sooner or later, he knows they will break down. What can he do to relieve their stress?

“Lexar ….” Makoto murmurs in her sleep.

Deciding that it’s enough of thinking today, the cat lies in a round shape in between two girls, then let them cuddle him when their hands extend out.