ALL NOVEL Book 3. Chapter 1. “Back Home.”
Book 3. Chapter 1.
“Back Home.”
A curse escaped Kalysto Luna’s dry lips, along with a prolonged exhale.
Every muscle in her body ached, protesting overuse as exhaustion weighed on every part of her.
I just want to go to sleep. She thought sadly, as her shoulders slumped in defeat at the troubling prospect that opened up before her.
Why do things never turn out the way I want them to? She grumbled to herself. She had planned to use this little vacation to rest, sleep late, and catch up with friends. Away from monsters, other dimensions, and any issues related to an invasion by creatures from other worlds. She had even thought about returning to Earth with Alice and her grandparents and spending time together.
But all her plans went awry.
And she ended up running away from a treacherous friend who had given her to a madwoman who wanted to absorb her powers.
Calm down, there’s no need to think about that now! She scolded herself as she inhaled deeply, trying to control the rage that the memory of the greed in Darla’s eyes and Edward’s betrayal brought back.
Damn, wasn’t ‘absorbing’ supposed to be an innate ability? How come Darla had it too? Worst of all, she was all too aware that when she used that same ability to absorb mana stones, they always ended up turning to dust.
Fucking traitor! How dare he hand me over to the enemy like that after all I’ve done for him? Kalysto closed her eyes and concentrated on inhaling and exhaling a couple of times while controlling the urge to hit them both. If only I could turn back time, I would never have gone out of my way to help him!
Her throat was dried out after so many hours without anything to drink or eat, and her stomach growled hungrily.
But when she opened her eyes, she again came upon the remains of Yerast Park, the largest park in the city of Blasky. And the remains of several destroyed buildings greeted her in the distance, making her stomach shrink from something other than hunger.
She, in her eagerness to find Alice and rescue the rest of the heroes, had naively forgotten that normal weapons didn’t work against monsters. Just as she had been unable to cut through the tough skin of the three goblins that had attacked Katia and her mother on the day of the summoning with a new knife. And while she had been sure that the military or the government would eventually find a way to keep the population safe, she hadn’t thought deeply about all the time it would take them to control the situation or the chaos that would entail.
Or of all the people who should have died.
Her blood ran cold with dread at the thought of how many people she knew would no longer be alive.
Enough, no need to be so negative! She scolded herself as she stroked her forehead and the metallic clanking of chains reached her ears.
Too tired to think clearly and devise a plan of action to follow, she decided to set her priorities. So she opened her inventory with the intention of taking out a potion, only to be surprised to find Katia’s ‘frozen’ body there.
Did she come too? She was surprised to see that the violet system had brought her, and immediately looked for Tsuki, noticing with relief that her pet was also there. Although her first impulse was to take them out of the inventory, she preferred to leave them there until she was in a place where she could take them out without having to worry about their safety.
Besides, I need to get in touch with Katia’s father, and I’m sure my cell phone battery won’t last long.
So she lifted her heavy and sore arm with effort and took out one of the bottles of grade 3 revitalizing potion that Caranthir had given her as part of their deal, the most potent ones he made, and drank it in three long gulps, feeling all the accumulated fatigue from fighting for more than half a day begin to fade from her body as she listened in the background to the masculine voice of the soldier speaking through a powerful megaphone.
“This is not an evacuation drill! We request that civilians immediately withdraw to the nearest shelter and evacuate in an orderly manner!... Portal opening alert! We request all hunters in the sector to join us in fighting against the invading monsters!”
“Why is that man shouting through that little device? Why isn’t he using magic?” Hanna questioned, keeping the small figure that Kalysto had seen portrayed in hundreds of children’s stories for her kind.
“Because before the day the queen summoned me, magic did not exist in my world.”
“Oh," she murmured with red-tinged cheeks, looking at her with sudden shyness. “It had never occurred to me that you lived in a world so different from ours. I thought the summoning worked because there were so many similarities between the two dimensions," she added, as all the butterflies nearby began to flutter excitedly around the fairy, as if greeting an old friend they hadn’t seen in a long time. “Hello little ones!” She greeted them with a smile that made the butterflies flutter faster around her, some landing on her eye-catching pink hair.
Kalysto preferred not to ask about the strange phenomenon, though curiosity got the better of her. Instead, she took out one of the special mana regeneration potions Caranthir had given her and held it out to the fairy.
“I know this isn’t the special food I promised you, but you’ll have to wait a bit until I can give you something to eat. For now, please accept this mana potion.”
“What does the champion wish for me to do in exchange for receiving the potion?” Asked the fairy instead of accepting the bottle. And Kalysto was surprised by the sudden distrust and frowned without understanding the reaction of her current traveling companion.
It was then that she remembered what the elves had told her about fairies.
‘Fairies will never do something for someone without getting something in return.’ Caranthir had assured her.
“It is partly an apology for accidentally bringing you here, while I ask for your patience in delivering my part of our deals. And partly a show of good faith, so that despite the two weeks in which you will have to stay stuck here with me, accompanying me until the queen takes me back and postponing the completion of your mission, you will continue to make deals with me.”
“In that case I accept," concluded the fairy, receiving the bottle with half a liter of potion. “The champion need not worry about the continuation of our agreements. Unless you breach the terms of any dealings with me, I am more than happy to continue to perform them and enlarge my collection of holy water.”
“I thank you," Kalysto replied, satisfied that her current source of mana stones would not be bothered by being dragged into another world against her will.
Having taken care of those two small details, she pulled her backpack out of inventory, reached for her cell phone, and turned it on.
The first thing she did was to set an alarm that would indicate the passage of ten minutes so she could start drinking a mana potion, since hers was still below twelve points.
The next thing she did was to call her landlady, Mrs. Tanner, but no one answered the phone. She then called the apartment where they lived but got the same result. Worried about what might have happened to them, she called Natasha, her landlady’s teenage daughter. But even she didn’t answer the phone.
Neither did Natasha’s older brother, Jake.
Kalysto frowned as a bad feeling came over her.
I hope they are well. She thought as she bit her lower lip and dialed the phone number of Jessica, her friend and Spanish teacher, but she didn’t answer either. Neither did Amanda.
A knot settled in her stomach when she saw that no one answered, even though she had called her landlady and her children more than three times.
The alarm went off, indicating that the ten minutes were up, and she feared that her phone would go off with twenty-two percent of charge left.
Then, she called Sakura, her friend and Japanese teacher at the university while drinking half a bottle of mana potion in one gulp.
Pick up, come on, please pick up! But just like the rest, Sakura did not answer her call. So she tried again. It was when she was about to hang up the third call that Sakura’s frightened voice answered on the other end of the line.
“Kalysto?” A gigantic wave of relief washed over her as she heard a familiar voice.
“Sakura? Are you okay?”
“Where the hell have you been for the last three weeks? The world has gone crazy! The monsters invaded the city and destroyed the female dormitories of the university, along with a fifth of the city. There are hundreds of dead and missing people!”
“I’m fine," she hurries to answer. “Look, I’m sorry to bother you after disappearing for two months, but I’ll tell you that story later. For now, could you do me a favor and come pick me up?” she asked hopefully, knowing very well that Sakura lived almost fifteen minutes away from the park by car.
“Two months? What the hell are you talking about? It’s been two and a half weeks since the last day of classes and the appearance of the portals and those monsters!”
“That doesn’t matter now Sakura! I’m in Yerast Park, there’s a group of military asking everyone to evacuate the area and blocking the main exit, I doubt that any car can pass but if you bring your motorcycle, I’m sure you can get me out of here!” insisted the saint.
“But if they are evacuating the area, that means there are monsters nearby!” The teacher panicked.
“Monsters are not a problem, at least not if they are as weak as the ones I killed the day the first portal appeared," she assured her.
“... Kalysto... Have you killed monsters? Are you by any chance one of those people on the news called hunters?”
“Hunters? As in bear hunters?”
“As in monster hunters! Those people who, for some unknown reason, awakened an extraordinary system and abilities! It was all over the news! Didn’t you see the news?”
“No, but...” and without giving her time to finish explaining her situation, the Japanese woman continued speaking.
“The government wants to get hold of them, but since the few that there are worked for some company, many of their bosses simply changed their positions and refused to let them go or give information about them! There was a big problem with that! Then the military wanted to make it mandatory for them to participate in the fight against these things and the government wanted to implement a new law, but there were many protests. Even a hunter who works for a law firm tried to file a lawsuit. It was all chaos. Especially since many parts of the country are intact. But people are afraid because of everything happening in other parts of the world. How come you didn’t know about this? Have you been living under a rock?”
“No," she clarified immediately. “I was kidnapped and barely escaped. I wanted to ask you if you knew anyone who could help me get out of the chains those idiots put on me," she growled, looking at the annoying chains attached to her wrists.
“You were what?”
“I was kidnapped," she repeated. “But I could escape. So can you come and get me?”