As the residuals of smoke petered out from the dying flames of a campfire, a man whose skin was as pale as that of a blank canvas slowly woke up. His platinum-colored hair went down to his shoulders and were naturally bundled into large locks of hair that all ended in a sharp edge. Stemming from the top of his head surrounding his hair whorl were four spear ornaments of the exact same color as his hair. As he slowly opened his eyes, flinching in response to the sudden exposure to the sunlight breaking through the crowns of the surrounding trees, his vibrant, crimson eyes rested on the carefully stacked pile of burnt firewood. He found himself lying on a wooden log that had seemingly been uprooted, though this uprooting must’ve happened a long while ago as grass and moss has overtaken most of the log’s surface. He sat up on the log, resting his hand against his forehead as he ingested his suddenly new surroundings.
“Wuh?! Why’s my hand so pale? And how did my hair grow so fast, and…turned white?” He questioned as he fiddled with the end of one of his bangs. Inspecting the rest of his body, he found that his entire body had turned into the same pale color as his hand and that his hair had indeed turned white. “Ugh, what’s even going on here? The last thing I remember is meeting up with Millie and the others, but now I’m in a damn forest!” His body automatically stood up as he shouted into the blue sky above. As his body began to lose its tension, it was quickly brought back by the sound of rustling shrubbery nearby. From behind a tree, a girl stepped forward into his line of sight. Her hair was a gentle amber color at chin-length fashioned into a short ponytail. Her physique seemed frail with equally slim arms and legs, though her frail appearance was not supported by the leather breastplate–of which only covered the top half of her torso–and leather padding spread across her arms and legs. She carried a robe on top of her forearm of which she laid onto the ground before speaking up.
“Hello,” she said cautiously, “Are you feeling well?”
“...” He was unsure how to respond, considering the unusual situation he had found himself in. This may be a reach, but from how this girl is dressed, the unusual body I’m in now…Wait, there’s one thing I can ask to confirm this–He thought before asking, “By any chance, can you use magic?”
“Eh…?” She hesitated before answering him, “Well…Yes, I can. I’m a mage, my name is Lyos. N-Nice to meet you, I guess.” His eyes shined with radiance as he realized what had happened: he had somehow been brought to another world, but he still wasn’t entirely convinced.
“Mmm, can you use a spell or something…?”
“Um, I guess.” Lyos squatted down before holding her palm toward the ground and saying an incantation, “Blossom, petal, and growth. Florescence.” Directly under Lyos’s palm, a plant stem emerged from the countless blades of grass and quickly bloomed into a flower. The flower’s pink petals resonated in the eyes of the boy, though he still found some things strange. That incantation seemed pretty short, I wonder how magic works here–He thought. Lyos only stood there nervously as he continued to stare at the flower in deep thought. “So,” she finally spoke up, “Do…Do you have a name?”
“Hm? Oh yeah, it’s Pier. Anyw-” Pier was cut off by the additional rustling of plants behind Lyos. Two more people emerged from behind the same tree that Lyos had also come from. Upon seeing the awakened Pier, one of them immediately drew their longsword from its sheath. The one with their sword drawn was a man that seemed to be anywhere from early twenties to early thirties, his hazel eyes seemed to pierce into Pier’s soul as he stared him down. His hair was also hazel and was decently short all around–though the messy nature of his hair did betray this notion–except for his bangs that were ever so slightly brushed to the left. His exact physique was hidden by his metal armor covering a vast majority of his body–though there was no armor protecting the sides of his torso, the back of his legs, and the undersides of his arms–but the fact that he didn’t struggle underneath the weight of such heavy-looking armor encouraged the idea that his body was well-maintained. The other person was also a male whose weapons and armor seemed to betray each other as he wore a minimal amount of metal armor with his lower legs and forearms being equipped in the same leather armor that Lyos wore; on the contrary, his weaponry consisted of a short sword and a worn-out heater shield implying that he utilized defense to an extent–at least more than the previous fellow armed with only a longsword. Equipment aside, his physique was vastly more obvious than that of his aggressive companion with his arms, legs, and torso being of great size and impressive shape. The shape of his eyes resembled that of a half-circle flattening at the top and more curved at the bottom with pure black irises to occupy his eye’s sclera, and his dark teal hair was of similar length to his companion though it was more properly kept on all sides except for an ahoge poking out from the top of his head. With his longsword pointed at Pier, he spoke up in an angered tone.
“Lyos back away, you shouldn’t be acting so carelessly when we don’t even know what we are dealing with.”
“Ser, I think-” Lyos tried to make a rebuttal before being cut off by Ser.
“We can talk later in private.” Despite often having episodes made up of unbridled amounts of curiosity, right now Ser had his head screwed on right, causing him to take a much more cautious approach to Pier’s presence. Lyos took a step away from both Pier and Ser wanting to calm down Ser so that they may continue to learn about the unique situation they’ve ended up in.
“Ser, just put your sword back into its sheath and we’ll be able to talk out all of this,” Lyos explained with her hands held in the air. As the tension built up between Lyos and Ser, their third companion(who of course is Gourd) spoke up.
“Hmm, what kind of monster are you?” Quickly, Pier answered with another question.
“Monsters? There are monsters here? Like slimes and dragons?” Upon hearing this, all of the tension between Ser and Lyos disappeared in what could only be described as profound confusion.
“...Well-Well yes, there are…isn’t that common knowledge?” Gourd asked in an equal amount of confusion as Ser and Lyos.
----------------------------------------
In the Kingdom of Metridium, Rent and Marlene, the commanding officer of the search parties, were in the midst of planning out the priority search areas for the missing homunculi. Rent was dressed in a more simple, formal attire with a dress shirt lazily tucked into his pants along with a bowtie that was properly arranged onto his shirt’s collar oddly enough. His hair was copper green and reached chin length except for the left of his bangs where it was only about half length, in addition his eye’s color complimented his hair with their vibrant orange copper coloring. Marlene was dressed in a dark blue blazer with a dress shirt that was properly tucked into her pants in contrast to Rent’s apparent laziness. Her hair was black with a slight purple tint that reached down to her mid-back and her eyes were that of a deep blue as if you were staring into the abyssal depths of the ocean. The two were alone in a meeting room where a map of the entire continent was laid out onto the table and several wooden knight pieces were lined up—these pieces coming from Rent’s collection of wooden chess pieces.
“...” Marlene’s focus was snared by Rent’s lineup of knight pieces.
“Hm? What has got your attention, Marlene?” Rent asked.
“W-Why are we using your personal chess pieces?”
“Well, this is not a war so I decided to leave the war room pieces and bring in my own pieces. Impressive are they not?” Marlene let out a sigh, choosing to accept the presence of Rent’s chess pieces rather than pursuing the current line of questioning.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“So, where are we to focus our search efforts? We obviously can’t search the entirety of the continent within a reasonable amount of time.”
“Of course, seeing as how the summoning and resources provided only permitted for the creation of two homunculi, we can divide the larger search operations into two groups with smaller groups to search within Metridium’s borders,” Rent traced a path going from Metridium’s border up as he spoke, “I propose that we send one group north by northwest to the Holy Kingdom of Ankyr and another group northwest to Frisk. We can have these envoys travel together up until they reach the borders of both countries where they will then split, conduct their searches as much as they can manage, and rendezvous in the same location where they split.” Rent rested his finger on an area just southeast of the separation of Ankyr’s(yes, as in an anchor) and Frisk’s borders.
“Why those two countries? Surely it would be more beneficial to send these larger envoys to countries that don’t hold as friendly ties to Metridium as Ankyr and Frisk.”
“You may be correct, but while these two countries are friendly to us they still have their own internal affairs and their own opinions when it comes to homunculi. Ankyr views homunculi as heresy due to their composition and origin being the same as monsters, and Frisk has a history of using homunculi as labor slaves.”
“But didn’t Frisk’s committee outlaw the use of homunculi in slave labor after the death of Gloria?”
“They did, but oftentimes when a nation outlaws something, that something will end being continued in private by those who simply can’t let it go. Afterall, homunculus labor was very efficient in the time it was legal.”
“So you intend on sending envoys to the countries we are already friendly with since we can undergo searches faster utilizing those connections, increasing our chances of actually finding one of the missing homunculi before the Tower fully ascends. Do I have that right?”
“Indeed you do.”
“I see, I think I will accompany the envoy to Ankyr then, seeing as how they pose a higher danger to a homunculus than Frisk does.”
“Actually, I have a plan in mind for you.”
“Please explain then.”
“Our current circumstances leave us at a greater disadvantage than before due to the loss of both Liquidation and Hornkin, so I would like for you to instead head south towards our shoreline.”
“Don’t tell me…” Marlene’s expression shifted to one of concern as she realized what Rent was planning.
“It is exactly as you suspect, I intend on coming back into contact with Ire.”
“That’s a reckless idea and you know it. There’s a reason why Amar advised King Jack to barr communication with her, and even if I don’t know why you do.”
“And yet she may be our only choice if we can’t find any of the homunculi.” Marlene held her head low as her mind toiled through Rent’s reckless plan, though calling it a plan may be giving Rent too much credit. “Tsk. Fine then, I’ll go down and try to contact Ire.”
“Please take as many soldiers as you deem fit, Ire is a dangerous individual and after so long she must be approached with caution.
“I’ll be fine without any of the Kingdom’s soldiers, I’ll be taking my adventuring party along.”
“I wish you luck then.”
----------------------------------------
The pile of firewood was charred black and had long stopped producing smoke as Ser, Lyos, and Gourd sat on the ground opposite to Pier on the uprooted log. After a long deliberation, the three had come to a conclusion: Pier knew next to nothing when it came to dungeons, monsters, magic, and the list goes on. However, while he didn’t know the intricacies of things, he seemed to at least understand the basic ideas behind at least the three of the stated topics. Despite his lack of knowledge, Pier asked a question that surprised and only further confused all three of them.
“You guys are Adventurers, right?”
“What led you to that?” Ser questioned Pier, continuing to stay cautious of him.
“Well all of you talk about monsters and dungeons like you have experience with them, but if you were part of a military then you wouldn’t be using armor made of leather, you wouldn’t be able to hang around here for so long without at least checking in, and if you were military then you would have brought me into custody or even killed me on the spot if I had come out of some slime going off of what you said earlier.” In addition to this, Pier also knew that Adventurers and Adventurers’ Guilds were a common thing in recent fantasy settings, prompting his question in the first place.
“You’d be right then,” Gourd confirmed Pier’s suspicions without even a sliver of caution. Gourd–having done research on the behaviors and biology of monsters–simply couldn’t see Pier as a threat especially with his lack of knowledge in regard to the world.
“Then would you guys be willing to let me join your party?” This question caused Ser’s eyebrows to furrow, but before he could refuse Lyos spoke up.
“We’d be willing to have you join us, but we would have to overcome a few issues first and foremost,” Lyos’s eyes glanced in the direction of Ser as she spoke.
“Like what?” Pier questioned.
“Well, the first thing would be getting you registered with the Guild and the next thing would be your addition to our party.”
“I guess I see getting registered, but why would joining your party be an issue?”
“...” Lyos hesitated in her answer.
“Regardless, as the acting leader of this entire party, we will not be accepting your offer of companionship,” Ser took this as an opportunity to properly reject Pier’s request, though both Gourd and Lyos opposed his answer. Pulling Ser aside, Gourd whispered to him though Pier couldn’t hear what they were talking about.
“About that,” Lyos continued, “We did have a fourth member, but we got separated a bit ago. We’re still working through it, but we don’t even know if she’s still alive…” Ser and Gourd paused their private conversation as they turned and watched Lyos’s solemn face, her eyes directed towards the burnt campfire. “She was the one that convinced all of us to become Adventurers, but a while ago we found a dungeon of undead monsters that broke open and that caused our separation. We’re not sure what to do anymore, should we try and rescue her? But that dungeon is out of our league.”
“Haven’t you told anybody about it?” Pier questioned.
“That’s the thing,” Ser stood as he started speaking, “dungeons with undead monsters are both rare and incredibly dangerous. So much that you have to get special permits in order to take up requests involving undead monsters. Right now we don’t have those permits and everybody with permits to take on the dungeon aren’t in Metridium right now.”
“Why’s that?” Pier asked.
“There’s been an unusual amount of dungeons up at Ankyr that has a lot of Adventurers from surrounding countries coming over whether it's for the resources, glory, or whatever else Adventurers want from dungeons.”
“I see,” Pier stared at the campfire as he thought, “I’m not sure if I can help with your missing member, but for both of our sakes I think it would be best if I joined you guys. Afterall I don’t know much about this world and without a fourth member in your party, your ability to complete requests is likely impaired.” The three of them stayed silent in response to the truth that Pier had just spoken. Due to being used to having the manpower of four, their efficiency has been greatly reduced forcing them to have to take on easier requests similar to the slime extermination request where they found both the Kingsguard Slime and Pier. As well, their previous member had been able to use highly advanced magic that Lyos had not yet learned, reducing their ability to fight monsters even further. Without many other choices, Ser finally resigned himself to letting Pier join the party.
“Fine then, you can join us, just know that being an Adventurer isn’t as glamorous as it seems,” Ser said with a sigh as he held his hand out towards Pier. While Pier shook his hand in silent excitement, Lyos whispered to Gourd:
“How’d you get Ser to let his guard down so quickly?”
“I told him that either way we would end up with a useful ally or a dead ally, and that I would give him half of my cut of the gold from the next three requests.”
“Hehehe, nice.”