「Even in this state, you refuse to yield even a bit to me. Humph… There should be a limit on how stubborn such a little being can be. In any case, it's time for you to wake up.」

A faraway voice resonated in his mind.

「You’ve slept for way too long. Time has come. Now wake up.」

As though responding to this order, the boy snapped out of his slumber. He slowly opened his eyes, but that course of action turned out to be one he would soon come to regret. The moment he opened them, eerie colors painfully stung his eyes.

"Aaargh!!!"

Clutching his eyes, he curled into a ball, releasing an unfiltered, piercing scream. Oddly, the pain ceased as soon as he closed his eyes, though the sensation lingered. Amidst the turmoil, he sensed and heard a presence drawing nearer. "What's happening? Are you okay?" a voice inquired, a hand gently resting on his shoulder.

The voice sounded frantic and concerned.

For who?

For him, apparently. And yet he couldn't place who it belonged to. Despite an ominous feeling that he would regret it, he turned to see the owner of the voice, and in doing so, he opened his eyes to a blinding light.

"Aaargh!!"

Once again, the pain vanished as soon as he closed his eyes.

"Did something happen? Your eyes — They're bleeding! What's going on?!" the concerned voice inquired once more, worry evident in their tone.

With a stubborn resolve, the boy cautiously opened his eyes once again, enduring the sensation akin to having boiling water poured into his eyes. Gradually, he noticed some outlines. A quick glance to his side revealed the shadowy figure of a girl.

Enduring the pain, he observed the lights gradually losing their intense brightness, becoming less blinding. As he glanced around, he realized he was curled up in a small alcove tucked away in the corner of a decrepit alley.

He looked beside him, but immediately averted his eyes, not wanting to see the person next to him, as for some reason the person looked as if they were made of an intensely bright golden light. When he looked up at the sky, he found himself even more confused. The world appeared as a wobbly, chaotic mesh of dancing colors, with the blinding white light being the most dominant.

As if his eyes were adjusting themselves for his sake, the light gradually became less agonizing to look at. The world was no longer as chaotic as it had seemed, although it still appeared somewhat unsteady. The blinding white had disappeared, making way for a more refined sight. In place of the blinding light were colorful strings, some as thin as thread, others as thick as ropes, each inexplicably connected to him and extending into the four corners of the horizon.

He extended his hand to touch the colorful strings, only to realize they were neither real nor tangible. They existed in a mysterious, ethereal and intangible form.

"What's happening?" he wondered aloud, his confusion deepening.

As he reached out towards the ethereal strings, he noticed that one of them, golden in hue, led not into the distant horizon but to something close by. Following its path, he found himself gazing at the silhouette beside him.

As his vision grew clearer, the silhouette, which had initially shone with a golden brilliance, revealed itself to be that of a girl, around 12 years old. Her dark skin carried warm undertones, and she possessed large, almond-shaped eyes filled with a mix of confusion and concern as she looked at him.

The golden string ended in her chest, just like it did in his own. However, unlike him, with a multitude of colorful strings emanating from him, she had only one—a golden one.

"Are you okay?" the girl asked.

The boy remained silent, putting some distance between himself and her. He didn't know the girl, but her darker complexion told him she was certainly an Odoe. Yet, something about the bright golden pillar he had witnessed earlier and the golden scales on her arm suggested she was not an ordinary Odoe. How he knew this, he couldn't quite explain; he just did.

Looking even more puzzled, she ventured, "Alexei?"

Hearing the name she had used, something stirred within the boy. "Alexei?" he repeated several times, as if trying to confirm that it was indeed his name.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

After a few attempts, he realized that the name was both familiar and unfamiliar to him. Although he couldn't recall ever being called by it before, he had a lingering sense that the name belonged to him.

In response to the girl's question, the boy, now potentially named Alexei, nodded and approached her, pointing at her. "You, who are you?"

"Phew, I thought you would never ask," she replied with relief before introducing herself. "My name is Ninjara."

As their hands made contact, Alexei couldn't help but take notice of the golden scales adorning her forearm. He wasn't entirely sure where this knowledge came from, but he was aware that these golden scale-like markings on her skin were not typical for Odoe, at least not those from this continent.

Observing that Alexei didn't immediately grasp her hand but instead stared at it, she proactively reached out and took his hand.

Alexei felt perplexed by her action but refrained from saying a word or showing any visible reaction. Thus, for a brief moment, the two of them remained motionless, caught in an unusual silence.

It was during this pause, as he continued to gaze at her—the girl now enveloped in a vibrant golden halo—that Alexei noticed a peculiar golden screen materialize in the corner of his vision, just beside her face.

Name

HP

O.P

O.M.P

Race

Class

Ninjara

13/14▼

156▲

37▲

Dae-Odoe

Scaled

The girl noticed Alexei's gaze not being directed toward her, prompting her to follow it and grow even more confused as to what exactly he was staring at.

"Is there something on my shoulder?" she inquired, unaware of the floating golden screen beside her face.

Alexei wasn't sure how it had appeared, but as he continued to stare at the screen, a sense of familiarity washed over him. He was certain that this was not his first encounter with such a screen.

In response to the girl's query, Alexei intended to explain the presence of the curious floating screen, but before he could do so, it vanished. Thus prompting him to, almost very naturally, simply shake his head.

"Are you sure?... I see. I guess it’s fine."

First the blinding light, then the strange colors, and added to that the mysterious golden screen, Alexei found himself thoroughly perplexed. Gazing around at their surroundings, he finally ventured the question that had been nagging at him for a few minutes already. "Where is this place?"

The rundown alley was narrow and winding, lined with crumbling mud-brick buildings. The walls were blackened with soot and grime, and the air was thick with the smell of rotting food and sewage. Alexei was confused about many things, but he was certain he did not recognize this place.

"Here? This is the place I thought we could find some rest; I figured we both needed that. Sorry, I couldn’t find a better place to sleep than on the ground, but you can’t blame me, right? Especially after you... No, he collapsed so suddenly."

"Who's he?" Alexei inquired.

Upon hearing this question, the girl inadvertently covered her mouth in surprise, realizing she had made a mistake. She quickly attempted to brush it off. "Don't worry about that. He told me you would wake up a bit confused, and that it would take you some time to gather yourself. But it's okay; we're safe here. And don't worry about the knights. While more might come after us because of what happened, I don't think they'll easily find us here."

"Knights? Wardens?" The names sounded vaguely familiar to Alexei's ears, but he couldn't quite place where he had heard them before.

"Yes, the knights and the warden. The same people who had you locked inside that crystal thing. You don't remember?" she inquired, her voice tinged with concern.

As Ninjara voiced her question, a deluge of chaotic and static images inundated Alexei's mind at an almost lightning-fast pace. Within these fleeting images, he caught glimpses of the people Ninjara referred to as the knights, and he also saw what seemed to be the same enclosed room he and Ninjara had first encountered. Alexei recalled the crystal she mentioned; he had been trapped in it, and it was she who had liberated him. However, after that, his memories became an impenetrable void, a realm of utter darkness. He struggled to make sense of it all, attempting to assemble the fragments of memories that remained tantalizingly just out of reach.

"Hm?" The girl tilted her head, trying to redirect Alexei's thoughts from their wanderings.

Uncertain, Alexei mumbled, "I don't... I'm not really sure."

Just as Alexei finished speaking, his stomach rumbled loudly, reminding him of his hunger. He hadn't even noticed it earlier, as he had been preoccupied with everything that had transpired since he woke up. The whirlwind of events had left him disoriented, making it challenging to keep track of everything. He had been so focused on trying to comprehend the situation that he had entirely forgotten about his own existing needs.

The girl seemed to find amusement in his hunger, a smile forming on her face as she chuckled and remarked, "You should have told me you were hungry." Extending her arm, once again revealing the golden scales covering her skin, she gently pulled Alexei toward the alley's exit where they had apparently spent the night. "Follow me."

"Where to?" Alexei inquired, harboring doubts but allowing himself to be guided without much resistance.

Looking back at him with a radiant smile, she replied, "I don't know yet, but somewhere we can satisfy our hunger."