He also heard…nothing! Besides the shaking of vegetation by wind, nothing else was audible. The lack of sound forced him to listen to his own breathing, which made him feel uncomfortable.

It had been over half an hour since Havel began walking. Evidently, the adrenaline rush from earlier had ceased, because fear began setting in.

He bafflingly appeared in an empty forest in what seemed to be the middle of the night and received nonsensical orders from an unknown ent.i.ty. It was unsettling, to say the least.

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Havel's heart beat faster. His breathing grew ragged.

"I need to calm down…" His own voice was the only thing that could bring him rea.s.surance as the forest grew eerier and eerier.

"A, B, C, D, E, F…" Havel resorted to reciting the alphabet in order to calm himself, because his nerves seemed to continue growing more and more agitated.

That was, however, until he realized that simply because he couldn't see or hear anything didn't mean that there wasn't anything. He stopped speaking in fear of drawing unwanted attention.

Suddenly…

KKRRRRRTTTTCH

Havel jumped! From somewhere far ahead of him came the sound of wood being broken. Terrified, he turned to run back from where he came. His mind was clouded and all he could think about was getting to safety. A short, confused scream escaped his mouth.

[Move towards the sound.]

Another message appeared, but Havel barely registered it. He continued running through the forest, dodging trees and jumping over roots for an unknown amount of time, until his legs ached. As a well-built football player, the pain indicated he'd sprinted for quite the distance.

Panting heavily, Havel slowly came to a stop. The compa.s.s and large pitcher of soda were miraculously still in his hands and only a little of the soda was spilled.

"W-what happened?" He set the pitcher and compa.s.s on the ground before sitting down cross-legged.

"I…I lost myself. I couldn't think straight, and I even ignored this obviously important message." Havel scratched his head. His mind had been so muddled that he even temporarily forgot about his hateful plans for revenge against Catherine. But, now that he could think again, rage towards Catherine began boiling inside of him once more.

"Ugghhhh." Havel held his face in his hands, calming himself.

"I need to go back. Even if something over there makes me lose my mind, the message says to go."

He stood, and with items in hand, warily backtracked. This time, he recited the alphabet without fear of being heard. After all, the short scream he released earlier would have attracted anything that could hear him singing the ABC's.

"J, K, M…L, O…" Havel was having trouble thinking and heard more wood being damaged, so he switched mantra, hoping it would slow down the rate at which his mind crumbled.

"Keep moving forward, keep moving forward, keep moving forward, keep moving forward, keep mo…"

However, that didn't help for long.

"Keep…keep…keep…ke…forw…"

KKRRRRRTTTTCH

The same sound echoed out throughout the forest, yet Havel managed to suppress his terror and force his legs forward.

Although in a daze, terrified, and feeling weak, Havel noticed his consciousness slipping. He staggered a bit before roughly placing down the pitcher and compa.s.s, not wanting to spill or break them. As his eyes were fluttering to a close, his body fell to the side.

Plop. The last image Havel saw before everything went dark was the figure of a small, black, furry creature.

...

"...ll last long enough. We won't need any more before we head off."

"Only if he wakes up, first."

Havel awoke to two voices conversing near him. His eyes gently lifted, only to immediately be pierced by blinding light.

"Aargggghhh..." A groan leaked out of Havel's mouth as his lazy arm swung to cover his eyes.

"Ah, he's awake. Just as you mentioned it."

Havel's groggy mind registered the feeling of hands lifting his body into a sitting position against a tree.

After his eyes adjusted to the bright sky, Havel slowly opened them.

"Oh! His eyes are blue...how rare..."

"Wow! We got to see blue eyes!"

Havel was still surrounded by the same kind of trees, but everything else was different. The gra.s.s under him was spa.r.s.e, the dirt rockier, and the temperature higher.

Something else seemed off. Besides the two adorable kids gaping at the color of his eyes, the sky was a bright...green!

However, Havel did not care as much about that. What color the sky was probably had no impact on his well-being. What he did care about...was getting revenge on Catherine!

Rage began festering inside of him as he remembered the image Michael showed him. There was no conceivable way that Catherine would escape punishment!

In response to Havel's change in expression and emotions, the two children, previously marveling at his eyes, wrinkled their noses and backed up a step. They couldn't understand why such a change would occur in the man that just woke up. Was he angry at them? Did they do something wrong?

The two children simply stood there, unsure of what to do, until a yawn was heard coming from there left. They woke up from their confusion and moved towards where the sound came from, leaving Havel alone until he calmed down.

Of course, Havel was too preoccupied with being frustrated to have paid attention to the children. He was reeling over the fact that his revenge was cut short before it even began!

"That b.i.t.c.h is so lucky that I...I..."

Havel slowly reigned in his emotions.

"That's right! I..." He looked up at the bizarre sky.

"Might not be on Earth anymore."

He looked around, trying to remember why he pa.s.sed out.

"I was walking in the direction of...a sound? Then, I felt too weak to continue walking."

Images from the night before flashed through his mind, surprising him.

"Was that a quest? I was given an order by the message. Did I make it to the sound? Is there a prize?"

[It was not a quest. You did not make it to your destination. There is no prize.]

Again, a strange message appeared in his head.

"Then...what happened?"

This time, no response. Havel groaned again, and turned his head, searching his immediate surroundings. Sure enough, the pitcher of soda and compa.s.s were near him.

"That soda must be eternal or something, 'cause it should have spilled by now."

Havel ignored the pitcher but picked up the compa.s.s and placed it in his pocket.

For some reason, he had a kind of...library, in his head. He could mentally flip through the messages he previously received. After doing so, he re-read the first one.

"Something about taking three kids across a desert."

He shook his head and released a long sigh before turning. He awoke to two kids talking in front of him, but at some point while he was angry, they went somewhere to his general right.

It was apparent that he remembered correctly, because he could just barely hear a few voices coming from that direction.

After walking a few tens of meters, Havel came to a stop.

"Where'd they go?" He whispered to himself.

No matter where he looked, all he could see were trees. He definitely heard some voices, but the owners of the voices were nowhere to be seen!

That was, however, until he heard someone break into a fit of giggles.

Puzzled, Havel looked upwards.

"No way."

The tree next to him was quite large, requiring several grown men to link arms if they wanted to encircle the trunk. That large tree was being used as a shelter by the kids.

Five meters above the ground, a large hole was roughly excavated into the side of the tree trunk, large enough for Havel himself to stand in without hitting his head.

Within it, two faces looked back at him; the kids from before.

One was female with long, dark red hair and orange eyes, as well as...pointy ears. The other was a male with short, black hair and black eyes. Seemingly nothing special about his features. Both wore what looked like Eastern robes.

The three stared at each other for a few seconds. The two children in the tree wondered why he was previously angry, while Havel wondered how the h.e.l.l they climbed five meters up the tree to enter the hole.

[Quest: Introduce yourself.]

Havel inwardly cheered. The unknown ent.i.ty that apparently transported him to that forest told him that he'd receive quests which, upon completing, would earn him rewards. Havel was delighted to have such a simple task delegated to him.

"h.e.l.lo"—Havel gave a polite bow, similar to the one stage actors gave after their show—"My name is Havel Svetovid. I'm a senior high school student and star player of my football team."

Even when taking into account the dirt and gra.s.s on his prom suit, Havel was a very charming young man. His blond hair and blue eyes could entrance most people with but a single glance.

But, the children above him didn't care for his looks. Instead, they were more curious about something else.

To Havel's shock, the children jumped out of the hole in the tree! It was so sudden that he didn't have time to attempt to catch them.

Yet...the two landed on either side of Havel as gracefully as birds, without even a change in their expressions or any other sign that the landing was difficult.

Havel was still processing what just happened when the two children, which only reached a bit over his waist in height, began circling him, inspecting him for some unknown qualities. They even sniffed him a few times.

Finally, the girl with red hair and orange eyes spoke up with evident disappointment in her voice.

"You're weak!"

Havel still didn't know what was going on, but before he could even think to reply, the boy with black hair and eyes voiced his own opinion.

"He looks strong for his age, but he's not even at the first pace! Weak!"

Again, Havel was flabbergasted, and a little hurt. He was called weak by two children half his height! Havel wouldn't normally feel anything at being insulted by little kids, but, this situation was different! He was given the mission of safely escorting those children across some not-yet-seen desert, but the children he was to protect told him he lacked strength!

It seemed the children were waiting for a response, because they stood next to each other in front of Havel.

"Err, I-"

He was about to give a hurried response, but then he realized that...no message appeared about completing his quest!

It was never stated by the unknown ent.i.ty that there would be a message about completing the quest, but, he still hadn't received a reward.

"Sorry, I didn't finish my introduction"—Havel was playing it safe by being respectful—"I was sent here to act as your guide through a desert."

He paused, but no message appeared.

"Uhh, then, could I have your names?"

Havel was suddenly worried that he could have failed such a simple quest as introducing himself.

Acknowledging his request, the two children turned to each other and had an unspoken exchange, after which, the red-head took a half-step forward and put a hand on her chest.

"My name is Alojzia."

Her hand moved to point to the boy beside her.

"He's Vanda."

Then, Alojzia pushed Havel's b.u.t.tons again.

"Were you really sent to protect us? Vanda and I are at the first pace, yet you, our guardian, aren't even there yet."

Despite being called weak for the third time, albeit in a roundabout way, Havel could not feel offended by it. That was because of the second sentence Alojzia said.

"What do you mean by 'first pace'?"

Havel could tell that there was something he didn't yet know. Despite the kids being half his height, they effortlessly jumped to the ground from five meters up, as well as had the confidence to call him weak to his face.

When he included the facts that he was magically transported from his senior prom to a forest under a green sky and heard messages in his head from an unknown ent.i.ty...

*Was I teleported to a magical world?!*

Beads of sweat began forming on his forehead. Normally, Havel would deem such a thought as so ridiculous that only an imbecile would come up with it...normally. Yet, no other plausible scenario came to mind!

If Havel had fallen unconscious at prom before awakening in the forest, he'd have a good reason to believe that he was sedated or something, then physically carried to said forest. However, he couldn't come up with any practical reason for why the sky was green or how the children could so gracefully land after a five meter fall.

Alojzia confirmed his suspicions.

"You don't know wha... Oh..."

Her face lit up with surprise.

"Vanda! He's never cultivated!"

She turned to face Vanda, making sure he experienced the same shock.

"W-what?! He's mortal?!"

He experienced the same shock.

Both children were now wide eyed and gaping.

*I was right!*

Fireworks and fanfare exploded in Havel's mind.

*Magic! Could it really be magic?!*

Judging by their usage of the word "pace" and their surprise when he didn't understand it, as well as everything else he previously considered, Havel came to the conclusion that there was some kind of system for magic in place that he wasn't aware of!

Sure enough...

[Quest complete]

[Your reward is information: You were transmigrated from your home world, Earth, to this world, Parthenia. The humans of Earth have not yet discovered cultivation, but the denizens of this world have known it for aeons.]

*Well, knowledge isn't that bad. At least I know that, uhh, cultivation, is magic.*

Havel rubbed his hands together in excitement, wild fantasies playing in his head.

*Ahh, but before learning about m cultivation, I need to find the last kid I'm supposed to protect.*

Havel called out to the children still frozen by stupefaction.

"Err, Alo... Alojzia and Vanda, where's the third kid? There should be three of you."

Being referred to by name allowed the two children to come out of their muddled-mindedness. Alojzia slowly processed Havel's words, and decided how to answer.

"Uh, she's up there."

Vanda pointed upwards. He was faster than Alojzia in recovering from his stupor.

Havel's neck craned to look up again at the roughly-dug hole in the side of the large tree.