“If Auria is able to stay away from the drinks at Euphrasia, we might even consider having food for once. Wahahahaha!” Klaus’ stomach rumbled as he laughed. The large sword that he was carrying on his back jumped around in a dangerous manner too, which made me step aside.

Auria punched him in the shoulder, “There will never be enough food for you, fat runt.”

“Ay, don’t go on the height, now!” Klaus roared and went for his sword.

The leader of the party, Tyber, immediately whispered a spell and a glowing rope appeared in his hand. With a smile, he threw it towards the sword. The rope curled around the handle and tied itself in a knot. Then, he pulled it back, which made the sword fly right into his hand.

He sighed and spoke, “I’ll have this until you’re done with the routine.”

“Give me mine sword back!” Klaus stopped walking and turned back, “Or else I’ll let you have it, I tell you.”

“Well, I have it already, so that won’t be necessary.” Tyber replied.

Auria burst out laughing while Klaus stomped his foot, shouting, “You know what I mean! Now, give it back. Mine uncle gave me that blade!”

It went on for a bit longer than that. Tyber was the calm, collected leader who kept everything in check. Auria was the troublemaking, good-looking girl who had great skills with a bow. Klaus was the dumb brute with a heart of gold. Yeah, I could place all three of them into very obvious categories. They were literal walking stereotypes.

Also, to catch up to what was even going on, wasn’t that difficult. I had gone to sleep in my regular world, happy about the holiday tomorrow, and then woken up beside a tree that had an unnatural shape. I didn’t know if I died due to some mysterious illness, or someone smothered me to death, or if some country threw a nuke and I had been incinerated. Whatever happened, I ended up in another world. Reincarnated.

I had seen enough shows and read enough books to understand what was happening. It did not even come off as too much of a surprise when I met this random travelling party and they told me my situation. This had kind of been something I had secretly hoped was true. And it looked like it was.

But there was more than that. As soon as they had told me that I had come to another world –

Klaus groaned, “Argh, not another one of these fools. When will they stop!?”

“Hey, it’s not his fault. Calm down. We’ll get him to Euphrasia, and they can handle it.” Auria saved me.

That had been what had started the whole fight between those two. Anyways –

Tyber had smiled and helped me stand up, “Well met, friend. You see, our world has had this problem for a while now. People keep appearing in these parts, from other worlds. But don’t worry. In a nearby town, we have set up portals which can send you right back. Come on!”

That was it.

I was apparently very much alive in the real world. This was just something to do with space-time stuff that I didn’t care much about. These three were gonna take me back to this Euphrasia place, put me in a portal, and it was back to my bed. What a dream!

The town was a very short walk away, so I wasn’t going to be in this situation for very long.

Focusing on the current situation, however, it seemed like Tyber had eventually given Klaus his sword back, but with a magical seal on it to make sure he didn’t use it until Tyber gave permission.

“Fine, fine.” Klaus laughed, “I don’t need mine blade to punch the devil out’ve someone. Especially this fool over here.” He gestured towards Auria.

“Klaus, Auria has bested you in hand-to-hand combat around seven times now. You have defeated her once, and that’s because she was drunk.”

“Hell yeah!” Auria shouted with happiness over the support, and patted Tyber on the back, who seemed happy too.

“D-don’t focus on the past, Tyber. I’m a changed man now, after that last fight. You saw how I walloped those brothers’ head, didn’t ya?” Klaus defended his honor.

Their conversation almost made me feel a bit bad. It would have been nice if I had gotten a chance to join a party like this once. But time everywhere moved the same, and if I stopped here, then I would miss that much time in the real world. As much as I hated to admit it, I did want to go back. I had a lot of things I needed to do back there.

Auria slowly found her way next to me and said, “Bet even you could take Klaus pretty easily, given how dumb he is, huh?”

She made sure to speak loud enough to make him turn.

“What did you say, you fool?!” His hands went for his sword once more, and then he remembered the seal. So, he raised his fists into a boxing position instead.

“Come on, then, me and you. You think you can take the legendary Klaus, eh?” He growled.

I raised my hands a bit and whimpered, “Oh no, most definitely not, sir. I’m not going to fight you. You’re way too good for that.”

Tyber looked at me and smiled, “One spell from me and you’d be able to match up pretty well. Please, let’s be humble. We aren’t that strong, compared to the mammoths you can find in this world.”

“Yup. In fact, Tyber’s the strongest we have. And Klaus is the weakest, of course.” Auria laughed and hopped away before her verbal victim could jump on her.

She hid behind Tyber and continued to laugh at him. He jumped and tried to threaten her, “That title belongs to you, Auria. I’ll prove it to ya, right here and now. Come on, then.”

I found myself laughing a bit. It was too bad that I wouldn’t be able to stay here for too long. But that was fine. These few moments were something I would never see in my world.

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Auria eventually sighed and stopped laughing, “I guess we have no choice. Let’s put on a s-”

We were walking through a forest.

That, of course, meant that on both our sides, were dense trees. So dense, that it was impossible to know what was going on between them.

Impossible.

Auria had slowly been walking towards a fuming Klaus as she spoke, which had moved her away from the path of it. But someone was still there. A blade swung through between the trees, and sliced right through Tyber’s neck, cutting it clean.

The blood splattered all over us. The head flew, rolled and rested right in front of my legs. Auria and Klaus didn’t scream. Instead, they immediately went for their weapons. I wasn’t sure what had just happened, so I stood there. Frozen. My hands, trembling, touched the blood on my face. Fresh, bright red.

Auria and Klaus never got a hit in. She took too much time to get to her bow, and his sword was still under the influence of the seal. The world hadn’t had time to register Tyber’s death yet, so it hadn’t deactivated.

What saved us was the attacker itself. I wasn’t even sure what it was supposed to be, but from the same spot where the blade had come from, a spider-like leg moved forward with immense speed and stabbed right through Tyber’s heart, stopping the body from falling down.

Before the two could do anything, the leg pulled the body back with it, and was gone.

“…huh?” I whispered.

Auria and Klaus sighed. The seal on the weapon broke, and Klaus took it out just to check. Auria kept her bow back where it was and looked at her friend’s head, still in front of my feet.

She bent down and picked it up.

From what I had heard through previous conversation, these guys had been travelling together for the last seven years. Tyber had helped both of them when they had been in grave danger due to mistaken identity. Auria, in particular, had been saved by him when she was fairly young. He had been with her for the most important time of her life. Klaus was almost the same, though they had been childhood friends before rediscovering each other. Tyber had told me all of that with a smile on his face, a mere two hours ago.

Now, that same face was lifeless. Blood was still dripping from the bottom. Auria kept staring at it, held level with her own eyes.

Then, with a sigh, she threw it into the forest, right where the creature had disappeared.

She wiped the blood on her clothes; some of it got on her skin too, and then started walking again, in the direction we were originally going.

“That was how he went, I guess.” Klaus said as he continued walking.

“Yeah.” Auria replied without any emotion.

What…was wrong with these people?

“He…died. He just died.” I trembled, trying to make myself walk behind them. They were the only people I knew in this place, after all.

“Yeah, way to state the obvious.” Klaus spoke in an almost normal tone.

Auria nodded, “He died.”

“And you’re--both, fine with that?”

They didn’t reply.

The night was slowly starting to set in. Far away, as we reached the top of a slight stop, I could see the shape of a city.

I kept following them in silence, in shock.

The city of Euphrasia was nothing special. It was pretty much what I had expected it to be. Cobbled pathways, brick-and-mortar houses, people selling things in carts, a fountain in the middle with children playing along it. I didn’t even notice half of it. Yeah, it didn’t matter. If possible, I would have liked to go back right now. I didn’t want to stay in this world for even a second.

Those two, had just, abandoned their friend like that. To Auria, he had been the equivalent of a big brother. And she had tossed his head away as if it was nothing. Was that the value of connections that people had here? I didn’t want any of it.

But when I breached the topic of wanting to go back, Auria strictly prohibited it. Travelling via that portal was not allowed at night. Those were the rules.

So, tonight, we were going to stay in the inn as originally planned, and early next morning, I would be off. I wasn’t sure if I was going to get enough sleep, but it didn’t matter. I didn’t want to sleep anyways. I wanted to go home already.

I followed them like a robot, street to street, until we reached the building and checked ourselves in. We got three different rooms and Auria, smiling, handed me one of the keys. I tried to snatch it away as kindly as possible.

Then, I went to the room and locked myself in.

Time passed; I think. Hours and hours. Or maybe mere minutes. I wasn’t sure. I was lying in the bed, which seemed pretty comfortable. I hadn’t even looked around in the room. I was fine with just lying here. I was going to go home tomorrow, first thing in the morning, and forget that this had ever happened. It was just a very bad dream.

They won’t let me.

Those were the first thoughts which popped up in my mind when I heard knocks on the door. Hours definitely had passed at this point. Through the open window, I could see nothing but darkness.

Stumbling, I went towards the door. It was the wiser thing to do.

I slightly opened the door and looked out. It was Auria. She had what looked like tear stains all over her face. Huh? Had she actually been crying? After all this time?

She didn’t say anything, and also didn’t wait for an answer. She pushed the door open and came in. She was holding a small candle with a holder, and wearing the same clothes she had been wearing throughout the day. Looks like she didn’t intend to sleep tonight.

“I’ll tell you.”

“What?” I asked.

“I’ll tell you everything, but we don’t have time right now. I messed up.” Her voice was hoarse.

“About…Tyber, you mean?”

“Are you fine with delaying your journey back? I don’t want you to go while thinking that we are heartless monsters. But now’s not the time. I have my reasons.” She explained.

I gulped, “What…do you want me to do?”

“Fulfill your fantasy.” She gave a painful smile, “It’s what people like you usually want, right? To join a party. Do some quests. Well, me and Klaus have accepted one that needs three people. Go ahead and do it. It’s safe, and won’t take time. If everything goes right, I’ll tell you about it all.”

“I think…I’ll just go home.” I took a few steps back.

“Tyber was really important to me. What I did…I can’t…Just please, believe me. One more day. And then, you’ll be right back home. Please.” Auria begged, “As I said, anything you want to know, you will.”

I couldn’t help but see the faces of those three when they had been bantering with each other. She was right. It made no sense for them to behave like they had. There should have been a reason. And yet…

“Time’s up.” She said and walked out of the door, “I’ll be back in the morning.”

Her eyes had been sincere. I knew that. It definitely didn’t feel like she was lying.

If I went with them tomorrow, and they did tell me, then that would at least be a burden off my shoulder. Easier to forget. And if they did something bad, I could try and run.

I went and lay down in my bed again. I didn’t want to waste my time and sanity in my world, thinking about this incident. I needed to trust her right now, and go for it. I could save my own mind from the horror. I went to sleep with that decision.

Tomorrow, I would go with them and get answers.