~Scroll of the Dead~

~“Oi wait up!”

A ball rolled at an incredible speed, it was followed by a group of children. But the voice belonged to none of them.

Suddenly one of them stopped and turned back, he had black hair and blue eyes. He had a worried look on his face.

“You’re slow as hell, Yang.” he turned towards a young boy his age, he had orange hair and eyes and wore a Chinese robe with a long sleeve.

This was Yang or a much younger version. Only this one didn’t have a tail.

He panted, he was tired

“No I’m not, I got distracted for a minute Jiàn Yǔ!” he replied to the dark-haired boy.

“By what? We’re in a forest.” Jiàn Yǔ tilted his head. Though they were forbidden, the children of the Xiao-Long town played as they pleased without limits, especially in a place as peaceful as this.

“That waterfall over there,” Yang responded after taking a look at his surroundings “Just got reminded of that one time Sun Wukong jumped down and still survived, isn’t that crazy?”

“Agh, this again?” the other kids groaned with the dark-haired one sighing

“What?” Yang raised an eyebrow

One of the other children commented, “Ever since he met with old man Hui, he’s been worshipping that Monkey King guy.”

“He’s not just ‘a guy’ y’know,” Yang objected

“You’re no fun anymore,” another kid added “It’s like my uncle said, you’re a huge glazer!”

Yang ran towards the boy with full force, he tackled him towards the ground and began punching him several times in the face. Who the hell was he to make fun of what he liked?

He was separated through the aid of the other boys who now began beating him up as payback.

“That’s enough!” Jiàn Yǔ yelled out. The other boys left the Yang and began walking away.

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Jiàn Yǔ looked back, he shook his head in pity. He had nothing to say to his ‘friend’ as advice, so he just left him there, hoping he’d come to his senses at least.

Yang was left on the ground, staring at the sky.

All that was there was the broken sun, darkness began engulfing the place. Yang was left helpless to be able to do anything so he let himself get consumed by the darkness.

-CRASH

A vase shattered into bits.~

“NO!” Yang woke up with a gasp.

He hadn’t had a nightmare like that in a very long time, heck, the last time he had one was a week after he became a monk.

The boy hoped he wouldn’t see any more of those again.

It was painful to be reminded of the past, even in dreams.

“Oi Yang!” the voice of Shin reverberated through the room. It was loud enough to probably break the sound barrier.

“Tch, what?” he finally calmed down.

“Breakfast, hehe.” He laughed, beside him was a fire he made to roast the fish he had caught.

It was now clear, the two were inside a forest room in the dungeon. This forest had trees, lakes, and even wildlife. Shin and Yang had decided to rest here after two days of traveling. Yang laid back on the ground.

“Dammit it’s taking forever, how many more of these rooms do we have to clear?”

Shin now walked up to him and sat down, offering Yang one of the fish he had grilled.

“Nah.” Though it looked tasty, he had to decline. Mainly due to the fact monks abided by a Veggies-only policy.

“I think you’re looking at it the wrong way,” Shin said before taking a large bite out of the fish “Fe Vundon, I feam?”

“Huh?” Yang shot a confused glare but quickly understood he meant to say ‘The Dungeon, I think?’

Two days of traveling with Shin Matsumoto changes a person’s way of thinking.

Yang turned back to the current discussion “What do you mean?”

“Vell,” Shin slowly swallowed the fish before continuing “Well, what if instead of clearing the rooms one by one, why not just clear the master room”

“Master…Room?”

“Something like that, a room that controls the other rooms.” Shin gestured before taking a bite out of his fish.

Yang thought about it, at first, it sounded a bit absurd. But not until he came up with his theory ‘Could it be something similar to a tree, the branches being the rooms and the root being the master room.’

Yang furthered ‘You can’t destroy a tree by merely cutting the branches. This guy’s not that far off!’ and before he knew it, he was finally agreeing with someone other than Hui Minghao which was a rare case.

“How’d you even come up with that?”

Shin blinked for a second before raising a finger “I just thought about a video game I played.”

“Of course you did,” Yang pinched the bridge between his eyes in disappointment, he hoped for a better response than that.

Shin chuckled before he finished eating the fish he caught as he laid back, from his perspective so far, Yang was a pretty cool guy.

‘He’s not all bad, except he gets really mad at times,’ Shin nodded ‘Not to mention he’s toxic. But he’s also funny and likes the same manga I do.’

During the two days of exploring, they had shared numerous discussions on the manga or comics they liked. Stuff like Dragon Ball, Hunter x Hunter, Yu-Gi-Oh, One Piece and so much more. They had more things in common than one would expect aside from that.

‘Though something’s been bothering me,’ he looked at Yang, more specifically, his tail. It was moving naturally as any animal’s tail would. ‘He gets angry when people make fun of it, wonder if it was something that happened to him?’

Yang was staring at the scenery for a while before he could feel the gaze of a person on him, causing him to turn towards Shin.

“What?”

“Nothing, it’s just…” Shin paused, he wanted to know but he didn’t want to make his newfound ‘friend’ upset. Though Yang saw this and shook his head.

“Don’t worry, ask away,” Yang shrugged before pointing at Shin with a scared look “Except for the things I’d say in a group chat!”

“Ahaha!” Shin laughed out hysterically before calming down “What’s with that tail, how’d you get it?”

Yang’s smile now died down. Not like he didn’t see this question coming from a mile away, but answering it would bring back memories he didn’t like.

He let out a sigh.

“Or wait don’t tell me,” Shin spoke up, he loved playing guessing games “One of your parents is a beastman right?”

“Eh?” Yang’s eyebrows twitched

“Or no no, you’re secretly from an extinct alien race sent to protect mankind,”

“…”

“Or maybe you were born from a stone, kinda like Sun Wukong eh?”

“I was cursed… by a vase…”

The atmosphere froze, Shin did not expect this answer.

“Wait what?”

“You heard me,” He responded “I’m originally human, or I used to be? I can’t tell honestly, 8 years made it feel like a dream.”

Shin couldn’t tell whether to be confused or sad. But he needed to know even further.

He swallowed his spit “What happened?”

Yang inhaled and exhaled. He’d be walking down memory lane once again.