The sky was clouded as rain poured on the ground the dirty streets were empty while the old stone houses with wooden windows were closed. In all of that downpour there was a child, a golden haired orphan, guarding himself from the rain under a pile of broken planks as he was caught unprepared for it.
Today he had been unlucky as he hadn’t found any food on the streets, the knights had been more alert lately and if he were to be found stealing from a merchant then he would have to say goodbye to his hands.
The kid looked at the ground, as a half eaten dirty apple floated by in a river from the rain, without wasting any second the kid grabbed it, eating it in an instant, he couldn’t be picky with his food, even if he were to find a worm on it at least it would give it a bit more of flavor.
After eating the apple he walked back to his dry spot, waiting for the rain to stop.
...
..
.
Zale slowly opened his eyes with a headache, he felt the taste of dirt in his mouth, the dream felt completely realistic, so much that he started thinking it may not be a dream. But right now he only wanted to have a glass of water as he felt thirsty.
After storing the sword on its box, he went back up, finding out it was midnight. He had been unconscious for hours.
After serving himself a cup of cold water he started thinking ‘... that place, I know it, I saw it before in my dreams’ he could slightly remember the style of the buildings from some of his dreams, but he still didn’t know why it was happening.
“first of all, I’ll ask of that sword to my parents” he grabbed his phone and sent a photo of the box the sword was kept. But he would have to wait as it was midnight and his parents would be asleep.
*BZZZZ BZZZZ*
... or not.
Zale looked at his phone as his father had sent him a message. He told him that the box was the one that his grandfather, Zale’s great-grandfather, used. The sword was found inside a rift in a royal castle, it was theorized that the elite magic swordmen from that world recieved it as a form of their rank, even if the swords looked very common it increased the power of magic and memory of the brain, helping them be able to remember peak rank spells easily.
“remember.... remember.... so that’s it” he pondered for a bit finally reaching a conclusion, it seemed that by using that sword his mind got enhanced, making his memory better and letting him see more into his weird dreams.
“but that doesn’t explain why I fell unconscious, is it because I’m still not qualified for the sword or is it the dreams I’m having? Anyway, if I try using it again my head would melt, I’ll go to sleep to cool down my brain”
After everything that happened, he changed into his pajamas and went to sleep, relaxing himself.
...
And he had another dream, it was a bit similar to the one he saw yesterday but it was still blurry. Today was Saturday, meaning that he had free time to use the sword once again, but after preparing himself.
He grabbed an ice pack and some pain killers, after that, he filled the floor with pillows to break his fall. Finally prepared he swung the sword slashing the air like yesterday.
Finally after being in sync, he felt the same deja vu as the world spun again.
.
..
...
The streets were wet as the sun shined all over the city after the rain, becoming a beautiful scene, but for the slums it was a different story, once the sun came out it was time for the hunt to start.
The same as in a forest, where the strong eat the weak, in the slums the strong steal from the weak, and it was time for the little orphan to hide and run from them, to keep the copper coins in his hands.
He hid between the wooden houses, in a thin alley that was a bit tight even for him that connected to another alley, and the next one to another. After some wriggling in there, he finally got out.
“leave me alone!!!” the first thing he saw was another kid running away from a man.
The kid had a chestnut hair and was running away with bruises on his body “come back you stupid kid!” even if the kid was fast, the man still was able to catch up with him, grabbing his hand and throwing him on the floor.
The man was panting as he tried to grab what the kid had on his hands “give it to me now if you don’t want your hands broken!” the man grabbed the kid’s hands, trying to pry it open, but before he could do anything he fought back bitting the finger of the man.
“AGH! You little shit!” he slapped the kid as he lost a bit of strenght, but still not enough to drop what he had.
The golden haired orphan looked at what was happening, he could just go away and ignore it, but still, he couldn’t just do nothing, if he were in the position of the other kid he would also want help.
He had always wanted to help others even whenever he could even if he couldn’t do much, thus he decided, he put the copper coins inside his pants as he grabbed a wooden stick, it wasnt very big but it would still be useful for what he had planned.
He knew that hitting him wouldn’t be enough and his body didn’t have the strenght to do any damage to a grown man, but he could still do one thing.
As he runned to the back of the man, he grabbed the stick as if it were a spear and thrusted..... right up the man’s ass.
He had to use ANY weak spot he could find, as it was survival of the fittest.
“AAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHH!!!!!” the man screamed at the top of his lungs, falling to the side and rolling on the ground.
The orphan on the floor noticed the hand of another kid as he grabbed him and they runned away, back into the thin alley.
The both squeezed in and out of danger were finally able to catch some breath while still hearing the screams of pain from the man.
“t-thank you” the chestnut haired kid said, having a bruise on his face after the slap he had recieved.
“its still not over, follow me, I know a safe place” the blonde haired kid said, taking him by hand to his safe spot he called house.
It was a place far away from the slums and the people and while it took some time to reach the outer part of the city, making searching for food harder, it was the safest place he knew.
“here we will be safe” the blonde kid said sitting on the ground as the other kid did the same.
“.... why did you help me? You could have gotten caught with me” the kid said, looking at him.
“because I wanted to”
“just that? You risked yourself because you wanted to? That’s hard to believe”
“well, that’s what a hero is supposed to be”
“hero? bah, you can’t even get enough money for food, and you want to become a hero?”
The blonde kid’s lips twitched after hearing that “oh yeah? And what about you? You are not very different from me”
“at least I’m doing something far more easier, I’ll become an adventurer, get enough money for my class awakening and then I’ll live a great life with beautiful women and money!”
“wow, I didn’t expect to save a pervert” the blonde kid said, making fun of him.
“oh shut up! At least that’s far more possible than becoming a hero!”
“how would you know?! do you know how much it costs to get an adventurer license?!”
“HAHAHAHA! Of course and today is my jackpot!” he finally opened his hands, revealing a bag full of coins “all of them silver coins! And you know? Enough for two adventurer’s licenses” he reached out his arm towards the blonde kid “become my companion and let’s help each other out”
The blonde kid was spechless “are you crazy? Telling me out of nowhere and to a complete stranger? It will be a dangerous life”
“as if danger wasn’t already here, come and grab my hand already, I’m getting tired and I wouldn’t want to use the leftover money on a nice inn to slee-”
Before he was able to finish his words, the blonde kid grabbed his hand “then you must help me in becoming a hero, in becoming the hope of the people”
“heh, step by step little hero, let’s first go to the adventurers guild before we get the money stolen” the kid said, as he helped the blonde kid get up.
...
..
.
Zale woke up, his head hurting even more than before, he had pushed too much his limits as his nose started bleeding. He reached for the icepack, putting it on his head to cool it down as he also gulped a painkiller. The more he saw those dreams the less he thought they were just that, it was too real for it to be just a dream “hell, there are rifts to other worlds, I shouldn’t eliminate the possibility of memories from another world.... and that kid, I feel like I saw him before....” trying to remember from where he saw that kid, a thought appeared in his mind.
As he was feeling better thanks to the enhanced painkillers, he went and grabed a memory book, searching over the photos, finally finding the one he was searching, a photo of two children, him and Aster.
“...the same, they are the same” it was an exact copy of when Aster was a kid, 9 years old.
“what the hell is going on... I need more answers...” he planned on using the sword again, but he was interrupted by his stomach rumbling “... but I think I should eat something first”
He looked at the clock as it was already the afternoon as more hours had passed, right at the time to have some food.
While preparing his food, he looked at some messages he recieved, he deleted the spamed ones from the girls on his class and looked at Aster, he was offline.
“it’s been some time since he last played a game, he really did change” Zale became a bit nostalgic of the past, the times Aster always made him stop studying to play some games, to have fun... of course, his parents didn’t like Aster, they thought of him as someone rude, talentless, and lazy.
Just imagining their faces after they hear how much he got on the last exam, it made Zale laugh silently while eating.
After finishing his food, he drank some more cold water and repeated his slashes.
.
..
...
After sneaking all the way to the adventurers guild, they finally entered the place, as they looked around the place they could see the different kinds of people, men in beast skins, women with revealing clothing, cloaked people at the farthest tables and more kinds of people, making the two kids stand out as they wore torn rags.
The chestnut haired kid whispered to the blond one “don’t lower your head, I’ll be the one talking”
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“I didn’t plan on lowering my head, a hero would never do that”
“then follow me, I practiced hundreds of times on how to do this”
The two kids started walking, the blond one following the chestnut kid from behind.
When they reached the counter they looked at the women, she had long ears as she looked like an elf that they heard people talk about, the chestnut kid preparing himself to talk to the women behind the counter “hey beauty, can we have a bit of your time?” he said, while trying to make a seductive face.... trying.
“.....” the whole place became silent as the kid kept making that face, finally ending in laughter from everyone.
“kid, try growing up before doing that!” “hey miss, you seem to have charmed a little kid!” “You should try keeping your charm a bit down!” and comments like that flew around, while the boy tried to keep that same face, but slowly crumbling away.
The blond one had his hands against his face, dying from embarrassment “well, you succeded in breaking the ice... somewhat”
The chestmut kid heard that, but was still paralyzed by the fool he made of himself, making the blond one step in “miss, we came here to get our adventurers badge”
The room became quiet once again as the woman talked “are you sure? I must warn you, being an adventurer is dangerous, in any moment you could die even when collecting herbs” the elf woman said with a stern face.
“and we could die any moment in the slums, we are just jumping from one forest to another, in which we could make money”
A man came up to him, he was as twice as big as the man from the other day “kid, if you were to become an adventurer, you would have to fight against people like me, do you still want to do it?” he released a threatening aura, one that made the legs of the child tremble with fear.
“so be it, I’ve seen worse things” the blonde said, keeping himself from crumbling into the floor from fear.
The man kept staring at the little kid, waiting for him to fall to his knees, but was interrupted by the other kid “okay, calm down big man. My friend over here hasn’t experienced that kind of danger yet, so you can keep that down until he grows” the chestnut kid put himself in between them, not even trembling from the pressure.
“...” of course the man was surprised, he was a C-rank, he had strenght enough to rip multiple normal men in half and yet the kid was standing there without fear “you, what are you?”
“oh me? Well I don’t like telling my past but...” he pulled the collar of his rags, showing a tattoo under his collarbone “I’m a free man now”
He was shocked at what he was seeing “you.... fine, do whatever you want!” the man walked away towards his group “let’s go do the mission already”
“what? We still didn’t drink anything...”
He took away his team.
The blonde kid was shocked at how easily the man went away “what did you do?”
“oh nothing, he asked for my past and I showed him” the chestnut kid walked towards the woman at the counter once again “so, as my friend said, we want to become adventurers, what is the process for it?”
“oh, well, first of all, do you have the money?”
“yep, here you go” he gave her the little pouch “is it enough?”
“yes, you even have enough to rent a room, should we start now?”
“yes please!” the both of them said as they followed the woman.
They entered a room with a large cristal in the center “when the both of you reach the age of 18, you two will be able to get a class, but now let’s make your badges. First of all, can you two write your names?”
They stopped on their tracks “well, about that... we dont have names” the blond kid said.
“oh... that’s a problem, well, can the two of you give each other a name? That way can also work”
The both of them looked at each other
‘a name...’
“I think Lux sticks with you” the chestnut boy said, looking at the blond one.
“well, then yours will be Mortis” the blond boy responded back.
“okay, I’ve written them down, now then put a drop of your blood here” she gave the two of them a transparent card and a needle.
The blond one winced a bit as he tainted his card with blood, while the chestnut one did it in an instant.
After grabbing the cards once again, the woman inserted them in the crystal, after a few seconds the cards came back out, then she gave them back “congratulations! The two of you are now adventurers!”
The two of them were expresionless, they didn’t know how to react to it, but as they looked at their printed faces in the cards, they finally started jumping of excitement. For their life had changed for the better.
...
..
.
Zale woke up, but he didn’t try to get the icepack nor the painkillers, he was just thinking of what he saw in the badge “..... my face..... when I was 9.....”
He didn’t know what to think, it could be just a coincidence, but the more he saw the more he thought of one thing.
“....reincarnation”
It was the only explanation of why he saw his younger self in another world, also Aster’s and maybe..... why he always felt confortable with him, since they already knew each other even in different lives.
After finally reaching that conclusion, he grabbed the icepack and the painkillers, right now he didn’t know what to even think, but he knew what to do “more, I need to know more, why can I remember? How am I ABLE to remember? It must be something I did in that life”
He still had time, tomorrow would be Sunday and he would also have the next weekends. Maybe he would have to stop temporarily once his parents came back home, but he was sure that they would just go to another city after a month.
He planned to stop using the sword for now, it was already night and he didn’t want his brain to suffer any severe injury from the strees it went through every time he remembered.
Right now he only wanted a relaxing sleep.
...
In a house inside a rift, a guy had sneak outside, Aster went to the backyard as he went to his secret spot. Sophie had finally sent him the books he wanted to his house and while they seemed normal books it was actually a cover up to hide their true information, but the problem were the materials “how can I pass them through the rift? If they find me with weird materials as a non-awakener then I can say bye-bye on keeping this a secret...” right now, there was no way to legally pass the materials through, of course, legally.
“right now spatial magic is too hard to learn at my level so I can’t take it with a sub-space, can I try sneaking it in within my body? They have energy detectors so maybe they will notice them, what if another person takes them in? The only help I can get is from sophie and she would be questioned why she is there after showing her ID.... wait” he had thought of a plan “can’t I just get a false ID from Sophie?” after saying that he grabbed his phone, messaging her.
After a few minutes she responded, she could do that if she pulled some strings but he needed a different look, fingerprints, name, etc. Something a normal awakaner couldn’t normally do.... and he wasn’t normal at all, so she wasn’t worried about it.
To be able to pass the materials he needed a past in wich explained why he was carrying those material, so his job would be an apprentice alchemist who graduated, as those were pretty common.
After one graduates from one of the three schools, that person can continue working under them or separate from them, making them free of doing whathever they want such as working solo, under a small company or start their own small company.
And he had to do just that, act as someone who’s job is getting materials for a solo awakener.
“she will have everything prepared in a few days, enough time to prepare myself”
He already knew what to do, if he wanted to be differen, just change your will “M.Aster, you wanted to do more things, right? Then this will be your job, prepare everything as I take care of this right now”
He left the job to M.Aster to prepare all the things as he studied the new books he got. He first tried to read the contents from the advanced alchemy... impossible.
His head just hurted from all theories and advanced knoweledge he saw, not understanding anything.
“let’s just start from the basics” sorting them from the most basic to the most advanced, he started from the Beginning.
|Basics of alchemy - Materials and potions|
‘Materials may come in many different ways such as size, purity and elements.’
‘For starters the first step for alchemy are basic potions, as you won’t need external help such as the manipulation of energy, but you will need the materials necessary with a pure liquid as a catalyst....’
The words kept going like a never ending river, he was completely sucked in it as he couldn’t stop reading, captivated on it as he found it really interesting.
He learned that to make a potion one needed auxiliary and core materials while submerged in a catalyst:
- The core materials were used to give the main effect to the potions, such as healing, detoxification, strenghtening, etc.
- The auxiliary ones were used to soften the dangerous effects on the body and stabilize the core materials.
- The catalyst would mantain the two together, depending on the quality of the materials the liquid should be changed to a similar quality.
It seemed easy in theory, but in practice you would need a high precision and timing while pouring the ingredients in order, as each potion would need different ways of production.
“right now I don’t have any materials nor recipes to make a potion... well, I suppose I’ll have to study the entire book tonight” he said to himself, hiding the fact that he just wanted to keep reading it.
...
Zale woke up from his deep sleep, he was lucky as he didn’t have a vision of his past as a dream and rested peacefully. He felt that his head had already cooled down, as he wanted to see more of his past.
He prepared everything like yesterday as he slashed with the sword.
.
..
...
Lux woke up, with the left over silver they were able some basic clothing and rent a room at the inn within the guild. As he was thinking on how much his life changed in one day, but suddenly a fot struck his face, Mortis was still asleep as he roled around, they only had enough money for a single room with one bed.
“hey! Get off me!” he pushed him back kicking him out of the bed.
“ugh!.... ouch” he slowly stood up, rubbing his back “that hurted”
“well, you should be more careful while sleeping. Now, what do we do? We used up everything we had”
“simple, we became adventurers, so, let’s do some quests and rank up! As G-ranks the only quests we can take are collecting or miscellaneous ones like searching for something, helping with chores, etc” the two of the were doing some stretching, preparing for the day “the minimum payment for those quests are 20 copper, so each night here is 3 silver if we buy the cheapest food, it's a good thing that the baths and water are free for adventurers”
Lux thought a bit about what he said, doing a simple calculation, it took a bit of time as he didn’t know that much about math “so... we have to do 20 quests daily?”
“I said as a minimum payment, maybe we’ll have to do around 5 - 10 a day if they are good until we rank up”
“and how many quests until that?”
Mortis got silent for a few seconds as he responded “... 100 quests as a team”
“ugh, that’s too much”
“well, not that much, if we do 10 a day then in just 10 days we will be F-ranks, then we repeat but with F-rank quests and again with the next one and repeat until reaching the most acclaimed rank over all adventurers, the legendary S-rank”
“really? By completing quests?”
“well, on the higher ranks there will be rank-up challenges, but the challenges start after C-rank” Mortis grabbed the empty pouch, tying it to his pants with a thick string “now, let’s go”
Lux followed behind him, he looked around as he saw the guild once again.
Right now they were on the upper floor but to reach the lower floor they had to take the stairs that were on their left and right, following one of those stairs would bring them to the main room in wich there were multiple tables that adventurers used to take a break while also looking for more quests, in between the stairs they used was a large counter, used by three people that took in the quests and paid when completing them.
The walls were covered in papers, each paper being a quest ranging from G to A class in the same way as in quantity, they could easily get any G quest as those were the most common ones.
“look for ones that won’t take much time but also pay good, like 30 - 50 copper”
The two of them started looking in different ways, looking for good quests.
A bit later, they grabbed a total of 14 short quests, if they completed them all they would recieve 520 copper coins, in short 5 silver and 20 copper.
“I’ll take those, they are collection quests and I know what herbs I have to grab, you take those they are mainly inside the city” Mortis said leaving on the table half of the papers they took.
“.... Mortis, how are you able to know so many things? You should be around my age and you don’t seem to have had a good life, so, how are you so knowledgeable?”
“well, you could say I was trained for that, but first let’s complete those quests o the night will fall before we get the money!”
The two of them went to the counter, getting the quests accepted as they kept them in their pouches.
(they had enough money to get one for Lux too)
Saying goodbye to each other until night, they went separate ways to complete their quests.
Lux did his quests that were simply doing groceries, finding a missing pet, cleaning and similar things like that.
While Mortis had to go to the (mostly) safe part of the forest to grab some mushrooms, herbs and different types of berries, using the old rags that he used as clothing as a basket.
Before the sun dropped they were able to succesfully complete all their quests and take a cold bath to take off the grime they got for working all day.
The used 3 silver for food and a night on the inn and saved the rest for equipment for their future rank-up, as they would have to start fighting in that rank. After all that was done, they went to their room.
“so, are you gonna tell me about your past now?”
Mortis sighed as he heard that “do you really wanna know?”
“yes, how do you know so much?” Lux said, taking it completely serious.
“well, as I told you, I was trained for multiple things, they teached me to differentiate between poisonous herbs, how to dismantle monsters and beasts, basic maths and reading, some combat....”
“but why?”
“why?” he took off his shirt, showing the tatto he had under his collarbone once again “because they wanted to sell someone of high quality”
“s-sell you? Does that mean that you are...”
“yep, you are right, I am a slave, well, I WAS a slave. I was lucky that right before reaching this city we were ambushed by monsters, as he didn’t have enough time to order me to attack, he died, releasing me from the slave contract”
“...” he now felt bad for asking about his past.
“hey now, don’t be like that! What matters most is that now I’m free and thanks to those bastards I can become an adventurer thanks from their hellish training and now I also got this tatto to scare people away as a bonus”
“does that mean that it no longer has any effect on you?”
“yep, after the contract broke it became just a decoration on my body and because it is from a notorious organization I can scare people away.... or bring more trouble if they are from there”
Lux was shocked at what he heard “then please don’t go showing it around! I don’t want my head targeted by an evil organization”
“I won’t I won’t, calm down. Well, I already told you, now how about we go get some sleep? And let’s repeat what we did this day untill we rank up!”
“yes, let’s go now”
After that, the both of them went to sleep, peacefully.
...
..
.
Zale opened his eyes as he already had grabbed the icepack out of pure instinct as he pressed it against his head and took more painkillers.
“wait, will there be consequences after taking so many painkillers?” he looked at the back of the bottle, not finding any dangers about overdosing “well, the medicine nowdays is really good so I suppose I’ll be fine”
Like yesterday, a few hours passed, but a little less than yesterday, he also noticed that his head was hurting less each time he remembered more “am I getting accustomed to it? If so, then that's better for me”
Like yesterday, he grabbed some food while looking at his phone. As he saw nothing interesting, he turned it’s screen off as he finished the food, even though he wanted to keep seeing his past he still had to do his homework for tomorrow, leaving his past memories for tomorrow after coming back from school.
For the first time in a long time, he felt like not going, like he found something else to do in life other than to study. But oh well, he still had to do it, if he didn’t he would just get in trouble....
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Extra: |Otherworld city - Freyala|
The city in wich Lux was born.
The city’s nobels have been increasing in corruption as they’ve been exploiting the farmers and commoners more than normal, decreasing the money they had, but the nobles were even harsher with the people of the slums as there had been more cases of imprisonment by knights on homeless people after seeing them outside of their place.
Outside of the gates one could find a dense forest in wich important materials could grow, but if one where to wander too deep, then they would find beasts and monsters that only C-rank adventurers or above could fight off.
At the west side of the city are tall mountains in which higher ranked monsters live that only B-rank adventurers or above are allowed to enter.
And at the right side is a path wich will take people to a neighboring city, the city of Rayon and with a more advanced city made for travellers, merchants and adventurers. One would need to travel in carriage for a whole week to reach the city.
As Rayon is close to more dangerous places the benefits are incredible with more expensive materials, weapons, armors, etc. But it also brings many dangers to the people living there.