Chapter 9:
I Found my Pathetic Self Transported to Another World after Having my First Love Confession Rejected. Will I be Able to Find the Life I Want to Have here??
“You have everything?”, asked Yaeon for the seventh time.
“Yeah! All packed and ready to go expect for the last bit of supplies, Granpa!”, answered Violet for the seventh time.
“Good… and don’t forget, when you get to Heast, the capitol of the Leiwand Kingdom, ask around for a Goldsmith called Herrman Juwelgriff’l. If anybody knows anything about those bracelets, it’s going to be him.”
Violet was fastening the belt around Rudy, who has grown to the height of a horse in the last six months. A small cart was fixed behind the happily squeaking animal. Alex carried the last of their luggage from the house as the door to the workshop opened.
“Boy! Come here and bring your axe!”, shouted Barrik, his head emerging from the door.
Alex put the package with supplies on top of the cart, grabbed his axe and ran to his teacher. Barrik grabbed and pulled him into the workshop. Everything in here was like always. The workbenches cluttered with tools and works in progress. Some half-finished to finished weapons and tools laying around and the occasional horseshoe. One thing caught Alex eyes. The beautifully crafted axe on top of the table in the middle of the room. It had a heavy and bearded edge on one and a hammer with a spike at the bottom on the other side. The head had some golden inlays, and a purple leather band was fixed around the top part of the shaft. Barrik sat down beside the table and pointed to the other chair. Alex took his seat.
“So, the time has come, huh?”, started the dwarf after a few moments of silence.
“So, it seems…”, answered Alex.
“I must say… I’m surprised. You not even made it through a year of my training… You even came out somewhat decent.”
“Thank you… must be the teacher.”
“That’s for sure. But I can’t deny you have what it takes, boy! The heart of a warrior.”
“I don’t know about that…”
“Hm, you may not know it but trust me. I have seen enough warriors in my life to know these things.”
“Thank you. I’ll try to not disappoint you, Teacher.”
“Well then I’ll get to the next thing in which you better not disappoint me either.”
Barrik’s eyes grew serious.
He looked to the axe in Alex‘s hand and then back into his eyes before continuing, “Back then when Violet brought you with this axe in hand, I had the feeling I should teach you the way of the warrior, but I couldn’t say why. Now I’m glad I did. This world isn’t made for traveling alone, there are too many dangers out there. Can I trust you to keep each other safe on your journey together? Can I trust you to watch over her and have her back, when she needs it?”
“I will try my best.”
Next followed a few moments of silence. They both just stared at each other. Unblinking and unwavering Alex held his gaze.
“That’ll do, boy.”, grumbled the dwarf suddenly and reached for the axe on the table.
“Take this. It’s too dangerous to go out without a sharp axe, and that old lump of steel you clobber around has seen better days.”, continued Barrik and held out the axe.
Alex hesitated for a moment while taking in the beauty of the axe. Slowly he gripped the shaft.
“One more thing. Be smart on what fights to take. Sometimes it’s better to not fight at all. Don’t get yourself killed because of some stupid pride.”, said Barrik as they both had their hand on the axe.
“Don’t worry, there is nothing to be proud in me…”
“There’s plenty, you’re just looking in the wrong direction.”
Barrik let go of the axe, took the old one and tossed it into some pile of old iron in the corner. Alex gripped the axe handle tight with both hands and stood up. He made some test swings. The axe was way heavier than his old one, but the weight was perfectly distributed, so he could wield it effortlessly. The weapon instantly felt like an extension of his body.
“Now let’s go back, before Violet gets too impatient.”, said Barrik and grabbed a bottle with four mugs.
They both went back outside. Violet stood beside Rudy and watched them approach impatiently, but her gaze became friendly as soon as she saw the new axe.
“Well then… the last thing to do is to drink to your safe journey.”, said Barrik and some of his dwarven whiskey into the mugs.
They all raised their drinks.
“To your health and safety on your journey! Cheers!”, said Barrik and Yaeon echoed him.
They emptied their drink and said their goodbyes. Violet hugged them. Alex got a pat on the shoulder. Rudy squealed happy as he began trotting the path from the hill. Alex and Violet sat on the cart.
“And so, our adventure…”, started Violet.
“…begins.”, finished Alex.
“First goal is the capitol Heast. There we hopefully can get some information about those bracelets.”
“Yeah, we still don’t know anything about them, except that we occasionally get visions of the others past.”
“But something seems to change…”
“What do you mean?”
“I got one last night. Up until now it was just incomprehensible gibberish, and I just got the feeling of the scene I was seeing. But this time I was able to understand what was said.”
“What did you see?”
“Well, it was you sitting in some sort of dried out lake, or something like that. There were tents everywhere and loud music was playing. You were sitting with two girls playing some kind of game where you have to guess some strange incident that happend by asking questions or something. You seemed happy.”
“Oh yeah, that was a festival. I’ve been to a lot of them. Always a lot of fun.”
“Your world is really interesting. How do you make such music? I didn’t see one instrument in your vision…”
“Well that electrical music…”
“Electrical?”
“Hmm… how do I explain that?... Well let’s just say it’s my worlds magic.”
“I thought your world did not have magic?”
“Well, no but somewhat yes? It’s different! We call it science”
“Oh okay… I kinda want to experience your world sometime…”
“For that we need a way back…”
Alex and Violet went silent for a while. She turned around and saw the hill getting smaller.
“Can I ask you something?”. Violet asked.
“You already did… yeah, what?”
“I’ve seen a lot of these parties you went to and now this festival… You really never had anything with one of the girls there? I saw how some of them are clothed, and that there is plenty of alcohol and other funny things…”
“Jup… nothing… well to be honest… I wasn’t really out there looking… I was losing myself to the music most of the time, or just flat out drunk.”
“Sorry for saying that, but you don’t look like the dancing guy…”
“Well, I would not count my weird movement as dancing either… more wiggling to the music.”
Alex made some weird wiggly arm movements and Violet began to laugh.
“We got enough time to fix our moves… but one problem at a time. We should really get those bracelets looked after, before they get to be a nuisance…”
“How?”
“Well, I don’t know, maybe the bond between those two get stronger with time, and more information will be transmitted. It started with visions without sound. Now the sound is comprehensible. Maybe we will transmit more than memories soon? Like our thoughts? I don’t want to constantly hear your dirty thoughts!”
“Mine? I’m not the one always trying to take a sneaky look when I’m washing after my morning practice… with her mouth open and drooling.”
“I was not… not drooling at least… Well… sweaty and pumped-up arms do look very sexy… excuse me for looking at something nice…”
“So, you like arms, huh?”
Alex tried to flex his arms a bit. Violet looked at him slightly annoyed, shook her head and laughed. Pulled by Rudy they went west in the direction of the massive mountain range in front of them.
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