Lancelot

As the sun began to set, the girl finally woke up. Sitting up, she placed her hand on her forehead, groaning from the sore feeling coming from it. She could feel a layer of bandaging wrap around her head, covering the wound from the struggle against the troll earlier.

“Where… am I?” She whispered to herself, looking around at the unfamiliar room. It was quite small, like the back room of a small shop used to store supplies. However, it appears to be remodeled into a makeshift bedroom, with sleeping bags sloppily laid on the floor and a short table standing in the middle. In one of the corners of the room behind her, there was a stack of boxes, however what they contained inside was unknown to her. Feeling a weight on her lap, she looked down to see a thick blanket, presumably used to cover her and keep her comfortable as she was unconscious. Being quite lost in her current situation, she took a moment to think to herself.

“So, here I am, in an unfamiliar room with a blanket over me. If I remember the sequence of events that happened earlier, I should be able to deduce what’s going on…” The girl curled her hand into a fist and placed it against her chin. “As I was escaping, one of the trolls stayed on my trail, and-” She darted up onto her feet, and began to frantically look around the room again. “The troll!”

Stumbling over his own feet, Bennett barged into the room, alerted by the girl’s cry.

“The troll?! Where is it?”

Not seeing a troll anywhere in the room, Bennett let out a sigh of relief. He looked directly at the girl, who was looking back at him, startled and in even more confusion. “Oh, you’re awake-”

“Who are you?” The girl asked in a shout, raising her hands up as if she were going to karate chop him. She observed Bennett’s face, from his striking red hair to the faint scar that went across his forehead, then to his golden eyes that almost glowed in the dim lighting of the room. Seeing that he wasn’t a troll, the girl lowered her hands and fell to her knees. She began crying, not out of sadness, but out the massive wave of relief that went through her. “Thank goodness… I thought I would’ve been caught… I thought I would’ve had to go back to that terrible place. I-I’m finally safe… Thank goodness!”

Lunging herself onto Bennett, the girl tackled him to the ground, wrapping her arms around him as she bawled her eyes out.

“Urk- Hey…” Bennett tried nudging her off him, but she wouldn’t let go. As she cried into his chest, he felt as if all he could do was lie there under her until she eventually stopped crying. Then, arriving at Bennett’s rescue, Granny came into the room.

“I heard noise coming from in here. Is the girl alright?”

She glanced down to see Bennett on the floor with the girl latching onto him.

“I could use a little help…” Bennett muttered weakly, the girl’s weight on top of him making it hard to breathe.

Having been sat down and given a box of tissues, the girl blew her nose and they all began the introductions.

"I'm Bennett. I'm the guy that saved you from that troll earlier, you're welcome."

“Bennett, huh? That's a nice name. My name is Lancelot… I managed to escape captivity from the trolls, but as you could see earlier, I almost got caught and could’ve been brought back. To saving me, you have my full gratitude.”

“Your name is Lancelot? Like the one from the stories? It doesn’t exactly suit you, no offense.” Bennett said, confused by the quite masculine name as compared to the feminine figure sitting before him.

“None taken. I don’t exactly understand what you mean by ‘stories’, though. You see, this isn’t my real body, so it might make things quite difficult to understand. My original body was taken by the Troll king… the shrewd bastard…” The girl, Lancelot, took another tissue out of the box and blew her nose hard. “Thanks to that, I had to use whatever mana I had left to steal a female servant’s body with magic. And if not for that, I could’ve put up a better fight against that stupid troll from earlier!” She said while punching the air in frustration, tissue in hand. “It’s been about three years in this body, and I’ve almost completely forgotten what I originally looked like.”

As he listened to Lancelot’s predicament, Bennett can’t help but be befuddled. Magic? Stealing bodies? Normally, this would sound like complete nonsense, but considering trolls coming out of a crack in the ground, and that very crack being a portal to another world, it didn’t sound impossible.

“By the way, I come from the world on the other side of the crack.”

“…Pardon?”

And suddenly, it all made sense.

“Y-You’re from the crack!?” Bennett was shocked to hear this, but at the same time, he feels as if he shouldn’t be surprised at all.

“Oh yeah, I’m from the other side. B-But I promise I’m not with the trolls! In fact, I came here trying to stop them! You see, I was somewhat of a hero back in my home world. In fact, I travelled with an entire party of heroes on a grand adventure! Our goal? To defeat the demon king and bring peace to the world once again!” Lancelot let out a grandiose laugh and pumped her fist. “We managed to take down the Demon king with ease, and the state of affairs around the countries was returned to harmony. But unfortunately, it didn’t end there.” She said in a low, dramatic tone to increase the suspense in her tale.

“Is it about the crack?” Bennett asked.

“Bingo! Not long after we took down the Demon king, rumors started of a strange cult lurking around in the rural areas of the country. Apparently, their usual activity went from stealing rare grimoires to opening portals in abandoned places. To where the portals led, I have no idea… ”

Lancelot grabbed another tissue and blew her nose hard one last time, her nasally voice now fully clearing up. She let out a content sigh. “But that leads us to now! Thanks to everything that’s happened thus far, I think it’s safe to assume the portals were all in attempts to connect to this world! Perhaps they were finally able to successfully open a stable portal, but it resulted in such a damaging effect on this world. The massive volume of mana it must’ve taken was powerful enough to crack open the ground!”

Bennett now seemed to grasp a slightly better understanding of how things ended up as they are now. Starting with a cult from another world opening portals to his, to the desert trolls coming through those very portals. Still, there’s many holes to the entire thing, as some aspects remain unclear.

“Then how do the trolls fit into all of this? Did they find the portals and just decide to see what could have been lying on the other side?” Hoping to fill in the remaining holes and gain more knowledge about the trolls, Bennett wanted to drain as much info out of Lancelot as he could.

“Whether it was accidental or completely on purpose, I would assume so.” A loud gurgling sound could be heard, and Lancelot placed a hand on her stomach. “B-But before I continue further, would you be so kind as to spare me some food? I can’t remember the last time I’ve had something proper to eat.”

Letting out a sigh, Bennett looked back at Granny, who’s been standing behind him in the dark corner quietly the entire time. She continuously tried flicking on the lighter in her hands in hopes of lighting her cigarette, only for it to let out small sparks. Giving up, she shoved the dead lighter into her pocket and walked over to the stack of boxes in the corner of the room. Granny picked up one of the boxes and placed it on Lancelot’s lap. Lancelot peeked inside the box to find a variety of family-sized bags of chips. Quietly squealing in joy, she began to take them all out one by one, checking out the various brands and flavors.

“Hey Granny, I’ll be on the roof if you need me. Just be sure to yell loud enough to wake me up whenever you do.” Bennett said as he stood up and walked out of the bookstore.

“Your grandson, he’s quite interesting”, said Lancelot as she stuffs her mouth with a handful of sour cream and onion flavored chips.

“He’s something, that’s for sure.”