The world changed about 4,000 years ago when demons attacked the world. People started counting years in S.E., which stands for Scripted Era.
Human life was very different after that. Many countries fell apart. New ones were formed. New technologies and discoveries kept happening. The best thing that humans did was find a way to travel to space and set up colonies. Unfortunately that did not work out.
There was a boy named Elric who loved learning about history. He studied everything from the Stone Age to the time before the demons came and after they arrived. He was also very interested in space.
He would often talk to his father and mother about these things. His father was a math teacher and his mother did research on space and tracked threats from outside the world.
Elric really enjoyed spending time with his parents.
On his graduation day he invited his friend, Noah to come and celebrate with him and his parents.
Sometimes Elric would dream that everything was in his imagination. That everyone was still safe and nothing bad had happened. He would go to university study history and maybe even meet someone. He would live happily get married have kids do what he loved and grow old.
Elric slowly opened his eyes.
His body was in shape. He was exhausted from traveling across the desert. His skin was dry and his hands and throat were parched. He was so tired he could barely move.
When he woke up he was faced with the same truth he had been trying to avoid. He was an eighteen-year-old boy who refused to accept reality.
He knew this was life, not some story where everything works out in the end. Sometimes all it takes is an episodes to make the pain go away. He wanted that. But he could not have it.
Elric looked around the room.
It was a room with wooden walls and a creaky floor. The furniture was basic. A bed, a table, a chair and a small window. It was a room, not fancy, but clean and tidy.
It reminded him of a story he had read. The house was similar. It was probably just an ordinary wooden house.
Elric had been there for three days since he fainted in the desert.
The two siblings who found him took him to a doctor and helped him. He spent two days traveling through the desert. Was very weak when he arrived.
He still had not thanked the siblings. Spoken to the doctor. First he needed to do those things. Then he would explore the city.
The room was paid for by the siblings for one week. After that he would have to pay for it himself. So he needed to find a way to make money quickly.
The room was close to the hospital a ten-minute walk.
The street was lively with houses on both sides of the road. People were walking everywhere. Porters carrying goods men pushing carts, merchants hauling sacks and vendors selling things by the road. The smell of food, spices and dust filled the air.
The city felt alive in the Demon Realm.
Before long Elric arrived at the hospital.
The hospital was a building made of pale stone with a wide entrance and many windows. People were. Going and the atmosphere was busy but organized.
Elric went inside. The hospital was crowded with patients waiting people walking around and staff hurrying to rooms.
There was a hall with signs pointing to different rooms. The walls were pale. Made the place seem brighter but they could not hide the tension in the air.
The smell of disinfectant and herbal medicine filled the air.
While Elric was waiting a commotion broke out.
While Elric waited, a commotion broke out.
"Quick, treat my friend! She was just poisoned by a three-crystal giant snake. I've got money, so name your price. Just hurry up and save her."
A young man said this while carrying a girl on his back. His face was pale and panicked. He pleaded for help, but no answer came.
Four large security guards approached to escort the man out.
"Even in an emergency, everyone's queue is full. We're sorry" one of the burly guards said in a gentle voice that did not match his build at all.
"I understand, but I need to get her treated right now."
The man raised his left hand. At that moment, a tree with two colors appeared. It showed pale orange and red.
Initially the colours were not very vivid. The tree was not large, it was small, and had few fruits and few leaves. Yet in the very moment there came another, grayish buds round the little tree. Then they turned slowly, and then turned into a kind of a weird orange.
The guard who saw this was stunned. He had a questioning look on the others, as though he wanted to know of someone who could do something now.
Luckily, one of them, too, held up his hand. His tree, in contrast to that of the first man, was approximately 2.5 times larger and produced three colors: deep orange, pale orange and a shade of pale orange that was slightly darker.
The same as with the first case, there was only a tree on the left hand of the guard initially. However, after some time, something started to spin around it. This time it was a little orange ring, the size of a pinky finger, whirling round his tree. Instantly it grew too bright to observe and was a rich orange glow.
"You have my lexecon way, huh? I am not aware of what the activation condition of yours is, but can it be compared with my rank 2 lexecon?"
The orange-gay buds of the man immediately he had spoken turned to orange light, and ran to the tree on his left hand.
Then with a spear shaped ability of fire, the young man did the same.
The spear of fire was thin and lengthy with its sharp end facing forward. Orange-red fires ran up and down the shaft, as though it had not been of common fire, but squeezed into a well-rounded weapon. The heat was radiated and it warped the air around it and each little movement caused sparks to scatter along a long trail.
Elric wanted to make a fuss, and flee, but, on finding that no-one was listening to him, so he sat quiet like others.
This is some kind of a power? He can shoot fire that man? And the fire has the shape of a spear? What sort of a lunatic thing is this? Is that man becoming mutated like a comic-book superhero? Or is he employing magic?
Had there been anything of this sort he should have heard of it. It must be handy in combating demons. Perhaps, this was why he never heard about it, because it was one of those things that he had only learned about after going to the Demon Realm.
The security guard did the same, as Elric was still confused. A thread of light flew toward the tree before he would swing his hand and make a small net to stop the flame spear as it came his way.
"Cursed be, I had been in a force that exactly neutralized mine" The man said.
Elric saw that the second and third security guards started to do the same thing as the first: raise their hands, summon trees, and something something. whatever....Forget it.
"Give it up."
"I wish to save my friend."
He swiveled and glanced at his friend. She was as white as death. Both eyes were already bleeding, and were nearly dropping out.
Her body was still normal on the surface, but now, once any one attempted to touch her he would have felt like a steel bar. Her hair was long and curling out at an alarming pace.
The man seemed about to manifest another tree, but as he did, the four guards tried to stop him by grabbing at or destroying that tree. The man fought with the flame spear to retaliate and prevent attacks with thread, small stones and bites. He leaned forward a little, and in his hand was another weird thing that was whirling around.
He was just going to do so to send it into the tree in his hand, when there came an awful bang.
It was so violent a sound that it shook the house to the foundations, as though lightning had struck it. All who had been industrious stood still. Even greater silence was deeper than ever. It was a loud noise, but the sort of noise that instantly informed all concerned that some power was giving orders behind the scenes, and that, in case of resistance on anyone's part, something drastic would follow in a moment.
"Take him to room 401 " someone said.
The man placed the tree that was in his left hand away and instantly ran to a spot where he was instructed to take her to be treated, where the four security guards were looking at each other.
One of them put in "I said we shouldn't put a lexecon with hard conditions of activation first. See? Nor is it even working at all."
Another responded, "Nothing can be done about it. That was the first thing I encountered. I did not know that placement was important. I should have known that, I would have employed some script strategists. What a misfortune."
Elric continued to think what had happened, but he ceased to think, as he now knew nothing.
It took him seven hours before it came to his turn.
Elric could only sigh. It was at 10 a.m. when he had arrived and had waited since 9 a.m. until about 4 p.m. he was called in to undergo treatment. That was preposterously long. It seemed there were very few doctors here, but that made sense, since they were playthings here. Nevertheless, in case there was a place where people could dwell, it must have been secure enough.
The patients continued to arrive and leave. There were some pale, others said they were sore, others hauled in grievously wounded. Employees scurried back and forth. The waiting-room was all coughing and sighing and whispering. The entire ambience made it apparent that this hospital handled vast amounts of people on a regular basis.
It was good that he was generally healthy and didn't have any illnesses or problems. Otherwise, it would have been a nightmare to come to the Demon Realm with health problems.
Elric entered the room, in which was a beautiful physician. She was sitting on the examination table, with dark circles under her eyes due to overwork. She looked to be in her early forties, but was still beautiful. She was clutching a cup of coffee in her hand and she looked fatigued but serene.
Elric sat down simply. The physician looked at him a moment.
Keep still, she said, unheatedly, her face unreadable.
Elric knew how weary she was, and so he did not complain.
She swallowed a large mouthful of coffee and then put up her left hand. He was used to this type of atmosphere. It was this odd power utilization like that man before.
Her tree produced a slight tint of green this time. The strangeness of it was that it stood still, and did not go round the tree, like the others he had seen. He would have liked to inquire about these things, but he knew how hard her day had been.
The object that had remained motionless by the tree was a green dust, like pollen, which looked like the dust of some plant or flower. As it flew into the tree she put her palm out at Elric, and green flashed through him.
This has to be treatment as she had likely diagnosed him the previous time. The information was probably already in her possession. He still was tired, sore, and weak when he first awoke, but now he was getting better, bit by bit.
"Return after six weeks and you will be fine. Pay the bill to the organization you are in after the treatment but of course you can pay it in installments. Notify us in advance in two weeks in case you are in a narrative."
Elric heard her, and was curious, but he asked no other question. He did not wish to intrude on her. He left the hospital immediately.
He wished to go visit his benefactors who had rescued him, but, on arriving, they had gone out hunting outside of the city. That weird pink desert was all there was outside the city. Nevertheless, not to get lost appeared to be possible.
Anxious and worrying that he had to go and see the two guy, he chose to begin exploring the city instead. But he had long since eaten nothing, and his stomach was continually growling.
Since he realized that his stomach and his thoughts were not in unison, he chose to go into a restaurant which did not seem particularly fancy so that he could avoid listening to his stomach whimper.
It was a small and simple restaurant in a small building with a few wooden tables placed inside. It was not clean but was sufficiently clean to eat in. The smell of hot food filled the air—grilled meat, soup, spices, and freshly baked bread. People were sitting randomly in the room; some children were chatting, others were swallowing food. It was as if it was a normal restaurant frequented by the locals.
He did not have a penny. He only had that strange cockroach with which he was in his body. Would it sell? A glowing cockroach? Or more likely they would just assume that he was a lunatic selling glowing cockroaches.
He wanted to be certain, so he inquired of the receptionist.
"Do you accept—"
The receptionist interrupted Elric before he could complete what he was saying as though he could read his mind.
"We take money, we do not give out free food and we do not accept anything in place of money either."
So he saw right through. Elric could only fantasize about delicious food, but it looked like he wouldn't get to eat.
"Can you not make an exception? Since I passed to the Realm of the Demons I have not eaten" I said, trying to appeal to the other fellow with my age, Elric, and a wretched supplication.
His attempt was in vain. The other side was cold. "No" dead-sounding, said the kind-sounding receptionist.
"What about this?" Elric took out the cerulean stone that he had discovered along the way.
He did not like to use it, as it had caused him to plunge when he was walking in the pink desert. However, it was bigger than the cerulean stone he had found in the narrative, so perhaps it would fetch a good price.
As soon as he produced it, the eyes of the receptionist brightened.
"May I have your order, sir? I am sorry, I will only relieve you of this foolish stone." The receptionist smiled.
Elric was no fool. He had a hunch that there was something amiss in the kind and manner, but he was unable to substantiate it. No menu board, or price list, here. He couldn't figure out how much that stone was worth, but it had to be worth more than one meal.
Nothing could be done about it. He possessed none, and barely knew about the Demon Realm.
"I will have a fat meal, full of meat."
He was hungry and thus he desired much food. He did not know whether this place had meat or not, but he had spotted deer, and there ought to be meat.
"Oh yes sir, pls be seated at first."
Then all of a sudden, something was hurled at the face of the receptionist.
A ball-shaped object, which had a thick, ridged edge–copper and zinc–enclosed with dry leavesless branches. On the front was a single drop of water, a drop of water falling in a pool, in a ripple of concentric circles. A value number was also engraved on the back.
"That is 4 Drops, and you don't Overcharge." Said the voice of a young man.
The receptionist displayed an irritated face and then, took the coin and gave back the cerulean stone to Elric.
"My excuse. I figured wrong" he said in a fashion that was frankly difficult to look at.
He continued to look annoyed as he walked round to the rear of the shop. It seemed he was only going to pass along the order.
Elric turned around in the direction whence the coin had come, and then walked over to the man.
The young man was in a kind of linen shirt, the top button carelessly unbuttoned. He had loose-fitting trousers suited to the stifling weather. He wore a battered hat on his head which had been well used, Both his left and right arms were tightly bound in white bandages, eerily reminiscent of a mummy's shroud.
He was sitting, lounging in a wooden chair by the window, one hand grasping a cold coffee, with the beads of water hanging to the cup, which he was sipping slowly. He was looking out the window, his eyes easy, and a slight smile on his face that wore a benignant expression. He possessed a careless quietness about him, which was weirdly profound and familiar.
He was about the age of Elric.
"What's up? You just got here, right?" the mysterious young man asked.
"Yes, I have just come. Glad to see you. My name is Elric. And thanks to you who came to my rescue."
"No..no, I am probably around your age as well, I am 18. My name is Sila, it is pleasant to meet you."