章 1: Black Hazard
Roko spent his days with data. He collected and sorted data for companies around the world and was paid well for it. Well enough to live alone in a small home despite being a young man barely in his seventeens. He had started working on data when he was just fifteenth, lying about his age on his resume. Roko didn't see faking his age as that big a deal and his work was professional enough for companies to either not notice or not care about his age. Once he had enough money stored away, he moved out of his parents' home.
Roko continued to work on his own throughout the years, bouncing around different companies, going wherever work could be found. It wasn't that he particularly enjoyed working with data or that he needed the money, he was just glad he could live independently. And independent he was indeed with nobody to call his friend. Despite the fact that he was still going regularly to school, he never really formed any bonds with anybody in particular. With nobody to talk to there was nobody to distract him from his work and that was exactly what Roko focused on. After school, he went straight home and began sorting data all day. The only times he took a break from his work was when he went out to the nearby convenience store to find tonight's dinner, one of the few reasons he ever left his house, and to occasionally play video games. That was his life and he lived quite comfortably if you were to ask him.
That was until he received a work offer from a strange person. His online handle was Hazard and he clearly wasn't part of any company. Not that he never took work from individuals, it just wasn't common. The data...was categorized innocuously but years of working with data told Roko that the numbers behind them clearly wasn't normal. It was suspicious and with enough time to look, even the average person could suss out that something was off. Roko had worked with data that had grim context behind it. But this reeked of something...wrong. Great care had been taken in obfuscating the numbers and Roko, a young independent recluse, felt like he was nothing but a particularly chosen disposable pawn. Still, he had no intention of finding the truth or exposing or reporting this questionable job. If he just kept quiet about it, he was sure he'd be fine. So he filed the numbers and sent his conclusion to the stranger before leaving that night to find his dinner at the convenience store. That night was the night he died.
Or so it should have been. When next he opened his eyes, Roko found himself staring straight up through the canopy of an unfamiliar forest. Gentle sunlight drifted through the leaves, gently warming his face as a serene peace settled inside him before his memories caught up with him and he immediately sat up, gasping heavily as he clutched his chest.
Where was I? The last he remembered, he was heading to the convenience store before he was dragged into the alley and killed. He felt the hand muffling his breath and voice. The cold steel of a syringe that pumped some sort of unknown substance into his body. He could remember suddenly feeling dizzy and sick. The world flipping on its head as he collapsed on the ground and the terror he had felt as everything started fading away.
But all of that felt like a distant memory now. He felt perfectly healthy even as the world around him seemed utterly unfamiliar. Slowly he got up and looked around. With a gulp, he started making a path through the unknown forest.
Absolutely everything felt alien, even as the trees and the sound of birds seemed normal. Even as he went further in the forest, nothing unusual seemed to justify his sense of unease.
"Where am I?" Roko muttered to himself.
Just as he was started to relax, a figure appeared from among the foliage. A knight in menacing black armor strode out from the trees and made eye contact with Roko. Fear gripped Roko as he turned around and began to run away. Confusion ran through his mind as he heard the clanging of armor chasing him and even the unsheathing of a sword. Looking behind him, Roko spotted electricity gathering in the hand of the pursuing black knight. He made a quick dive to the ground just in time for a bolt of lightning to shoot over his head and blast apart the tree in front of him, sending it tumbling to the ground with a loud thud. Without any time to process what had happened, Roko scrambled back to his feet and resumed running deeper into the forest.
"What's happening?!" Roko gasped as he weaved in between trees, trying to keep something in between him and the knight, "Was that magic?"
Another crackling sound alerted Roko to duck again as he dodged another lightning bolt, blasting apart another tree.
Knights. Magic. This wasn't the world as he knew it. This would have passed for a lucid dream if the fatigue dragging at his bones and the pounding of his terrified heart didn't feel so real. Something happened. Something that..transported him from his old, modern world into this fantasy one. Or maybe his memories of the modern world was just a dream that he had made up? At the corner of his mind, he registered the rushing of a river and a plan interrupted his confused thoughts.
Following the sound, Roko came across a large rushing river, about as wide as the average person's height and was at least hip deep. Taking a deep breath, Roko jumped onto a rock poking out from the bed of the river and jumped across to another rock. Making quick progress across the river, he made a final dive onto the bank on the other side of the river.
"How's that?!" Roko gasped as he turned around.
The black knight walked up to the banks of the river and stared at it for a bit. Roko watched nervously, hoping that the knights' armor was too heavy for him to be able to risk traversing the river himself. The black knight turned to Roko and raised a hand, calling forth electricity once more. With a yelp, Roko scrambled up and ran back into the woods, ducking behind a tree. Peeking around the tree, Roko watched as the knight approached the river and raised his sword. Ice began forming across the river, slowly making a path through to the other side.
"You've got to be kidding me." Roko moaned as he began to run away again, deeper and deeper into the forest. Before the knight could catch up to him.
After escaping a good distance from the strange knight, Roko found a cluster of trees to hide behind as he began to catch his breath and collect his thoughts.
"What the hell is going on?" Roko gasped as he wiped the sweat from his face, "Where am I? How did I get here?"
There was no answer he could think of and he knew there was no answer that he could find, at least as of yet. Finding out what happened to him was going to have to come later. Right now he needed to figure out some way to escape the knight that was hunting him for some reason. Taking a deep breath, Roko felt better as he finally began to accept his circumstances and his mind began to refocus on how he can survive. And that's when a whimsical and a little exciting thought entered his mind.
Could I use magic?
Roko gulped nervously as he looked around to a small boulder a few feet away. He raised a hand towards it the same way he's seen the knight do many times before. Unsure of what to think, he just tried to stay calm as he whispered out loud, "Thunder."
Nothing happened.
"Lightning."
Nothing.
"Bolt? Zap?"
…
"Ice. Freeze. Fire? Water? Earth? Air?"
Nothing happened and the situation began to frustrate and embarrass Roko. Not all too soon, the familiar clanking of armor drew Roko's attention away from his failures and to the figure of the menacing black knight that stoically surveyed the forest, undoubtedly searching for Roko. Roko glared at the dark knight with a disdain that he could only indulge in his precarious safety. From his hidden viewpoint, Roko studied the knight apprehensively, silently hoping he would give up and also silently trying out whatever magic spells came to mind.
Blizzard. Cure. Sleep. Magic Missile. Nothing really worked. Until one came to mind that he felt compelled to whisper out loud.
"Scan."
Instantly, information began flooding Roko's mind, so much so that he had to hold his head in pain from the sudden surplus of information. Level, Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma. Even a list of spells and the knight's weakness just suddenly entered his mind. Taking a few strained gasps, Roko steadied himself once more and reviewed the numbers in detail.
Level: 59
Strength: 47
Dexterity: 34
Constitution: 35
Intelligence: 40
Wisdom: 30
Charisma: 20
Spells: Lightning, Ice, Fire and Curse.
But there was one detail that utterly befuddled him.
"What...are you?" Roko frowned as he tried to understand what his mind was trying to tell him. With a gasp, Roko looked up again to check on the knight who was still thankfully looking for him, though he was getting dangerously close. Roko silently cursed his situation. Despite the information he now had, there was no way of taking advantage of them as he had no real combat abilities. Desperately, Roko looked around and his eyes settled on a collection of vines that were growing on the branches of a tree.
"Hey!"
The knight turned around to find Roko, off to the side and glaring at him.
"Who are you?" Roko asked.
The knight didn't answer as he turned to face Roko.
"What do you want?"
The knight continued to ignore his questions as he raised his hand at Roko.
"Oh no you don't!" Roko cried as he threw a rock at the knight.
The black knight reacted swiftly, drawing his sword and slicing the rock cleanly in half in midair. With his other hand, he pointed at Roko and lightning began to gather in his hand.
"Please...be right." Roko prayed as he quickly picked up the vine he had picked from the tree and threw it at the knight. The vine wrapped around the knight's left leg and with a strong pull, Roko separated the leg from its owner. With the suddenly loss of his support, the knight tumbled forward, his spell drifting vastly off target, now pointing directly at the ground in front of him with mere seconds before his spell would go off.
Roko covered his face as the knight blasted the ground in front of himself, creating a large explosion that rattled the entire forest. Anxiously, Roko looked towards the crater that the spell had created. As the smoke cleared away, Roko could see the knight kneeling there. It was clear that the accident had done minimal damage to him but the shock that Roko had managed to trick him so thoroughly hung in both their minds.
"How...did you know?"
Roko's eyes widened at the first words the knight had ever spoken. Before he could answer, they were abruptly interrupted as another, loud voice cut across the forest.
"You there! What do you think you're doing?!"
To Roko's surprise, a horse carrying a noble looking woman rode into view with another knight by her side.
"Do you not know when you're facing an actual human?" The noble woman addressed the black knight sternly. The knight didn't answer.
"And you." The woman turned to Roko who jolted, "What are you doing in the Paramnesia Wildwood?"
The woman frowned, "And what are those clothes?"
Roko looked down at his winter hoodie and jeans. Certainly they must seem odd in comparison to her fancy dress and the knights' armor.
"Hmm. For the time being, come with me." The woman said as she turned her horse around, "Once we return to Memoria Auspice, the headmaster will decide what to deal with you. Both of you."
Without any further words or discussions, the woman began to trot away on her horse. Roko looked around, confused and unsure of what to do. The black knight stood back up on his feet and began to follow the woman without apprehension. With no other choice, Roko began to follow as well before he turned to check on his vine. The leg that he had managed to capture was gone and had clearly returned to the black knight without any trouble. Still, Roko was sure of what he saw. The leg armor was empty.
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