A Party Of Fools

001

“Alright…what is this?”

A black-haired boy was sitting in the middle of the forest.

Anas looked around in utter confusion. The forest was dense and the sun barely lit the insides.

The last thing he remembered was sitting in his bed and watching TV. How would he transport to this forest out of nowhere?

“A dream?” Anas shook his head. “Yeah… it might be a dream.”

He stood up. For some reason his body felt heavy and it was swaying around.

“...” after a bit it was stabilized. “One strange thing after the other…I really hope no other weird stuff happens after this…”

Since it was a dream, Anas thought that walking around wouldn’t harm him, and it was better than just sitting still.

He never liked to sit still. The TV was an exception since he counted it as “intellectual stimulation” which was hilarious even to him but he just loved good shows.

“Eh?” he heard a roar.

“...”

Narrowing his eyes, he looked at the direction of the sound.

What followed was only the sound of air creeping among the leaves and the grass.

“Was it my imagination–” before he could continue his justification. He heard the roar once again.

This time closer and louder.

Then a bear emerged from behind a tree in front of him.

“What the– a bear!?” Without a second thought, Anas’ body started to run on its own. Dodging the trees and avoiding the mud, he tried his best not to get caught.

But unfortunately for the boy, he reached a dead end. A big rocky hill stood in his way. It was a wide hill and running around it would only hinder him and give the bear a better chance to catch him.

“Damn it!” He kicked the hill.

Even though it hurt him, he couldn’t care about the pain at this moment.

The roars got closer and he felt a terrifying presence close to him.

“...” he rotated to look behind him. His upper teeth embedded in his lower ones.

Opening his arm with an awkward smile, Anas said: “Hello again…you missed me?”

He only got a roar as a response.

He chuckled. “Well, it seems you did miss me.”

As a final attempt, he started to look at his right and left but…

“No escape, huh? Guess my time has ended. I loved you, sweet, sweet life.”

The bear roared even more intensely and got even closer.

Anas could only close his eyes and frown while clutching his fists.

He nearly felt his tendons rupture because of the stress he applied on them.

But just when the bear jumped in the air to attack him…

He heard a loud hit. Even though it was confusing, he couldn’t open his eyes out of fear.

When he finally opened his eyes and looked at his left.

“What…?”

his widened eyes could see the body of the bear. It was completely still on the ground and blood was pouring out of its face.

on the bear’s face. There was a punch mark. The punch was so strong that it made a depression on its face.

“A punch?”

“You!” Someone called for him on his right.

When he looked there.

Sharp blue eyes looked at him. A woman stood there, her arms crossed.

Her most prominent feature was her short wavy red hair.

It felt like a flame around her frowned face.

“What does a weakling do here in this forest?”

“...”

And thus, Anas was somehow saved.

002

“Oh. you are finally awake.”

“What?”

When Anas opened his eyes. He was in a dark void. Wherever he looked, he could only see darkness. It was like he was out of existence.

“I will get hurt if you ignore me, you know?”

“Ah!”

The same voice was in front of him. When Anas heard it for the first time, he thought he was hallucinating since he saw nothing in front of him, but now since he heard it again.

“...” his mouth was open and his eyebrows were twisted. “What is real and what is a dream? I am not sure anymore…”

From a dream to a dream? From a reality to a dream? Which was the right option?

He just didn’t know.

“Neither is a dream. This is as real as the forest you were just in”

“...both are real? But where is that girl?”

there was no one around them in the void.

In fact if Anas only considered what could be seen, he only existed in this void, but he was pretty sure that he was talking to someone or something.

“She is carrying you to her house.”

“Oh. She is a kind one…wait a minute,” Anas narrowed his eyes and blushed so hard. “Pardon?”

“She is carrying you to her house.”

“I heard that! Why would a girl carry me to her house?! And how I am not aware of that myself?!”

The voice chuckled. “Long story short, you are unconscious in real life. This void is inside your consciousness.”

“...” the blush immediately went away. Instead it was replaced by pure confusion. “W-what are you?”

The voice stayed silent for a bit. For him, it was completely strange to be asked this question after stating what he stated. He expected something like: “What?!” or “Why did I lose consciousness?” but instead he was met with a question about his own identity.

At last, he broke his own silence. “I am a normal human. Just with supernatural abilities and such.”

It was intentionally vague. He knew it even sounded dumb, but he wasn’t lying. He was sure of that.

“A normal human?” Anas clicked his tongue. “No normal human would dive in my consciousness”

“I told you I have supernatural abilities, right?”

“Yeah, yeah. My bad,” Anas crossed his arms. “So? Why does she carry me to her house and what do you want from me?”

“Straight to the point, huh?” Anas could feel strange amusement in the voice’s tone which made him arch an eyebrow.

“Of course, I am. I don’t like to walk in circles. It is just dumb.”

“Fair enough. You sure are strange, but I adore strange people.”

“Thank you, I guess”

The voice chuckled again.

“...you sure are having fun, huh?”

“Why wouldn’t I? It is rare to meet people as amusing as you. Anyway,” the voice shut up for some seconds then an audible breath was heard before he continued:

“I entrust the party to you.”

“...” Anas’s confusion doubled and he twisted his neck. “What party?”

“The girl is carrying you to her house, remember? Inside her house is a party of three people including her. I entrust them to you.”

Anas started to wave both his hands. “Wait, wait, wait! Entrust who to who?! Why me?”

“You will understand soon.” the voice simply said before Anas started to lose his balance.

“W-what is happening?”

“It seems someone is waking you up. Listen closely, Anas”

“...”

(My name…How did he know it?)

Anas looked at the direction of the voice with narrowed eyes.

He didn’t know that in this moment he was meeting eyes with the voice.

Of course he wouldn’t know but for the void, which didn’t expect to have his eyes met.

He felt a strange relief.

He felt seen. Even if he wasn’t actually but just a voice.

“Good luck, Anas. I am sure it will be a chaotic but fun journey.”

The voice said before…

Anas lost his consciousness.

003

“He looks cute~”

“Sister, don’t be so easy…”

“I don’t like this weakling but I won’t deny that he is cute”

Voices. Voices talked above his body. Anas felt his consciousness return bit by bit. And the voices got louder.

“Wh–where am I?” he managed to gasp.

“Oh. You are awake”

When finally his vision returned. The first thing Anas saw was the face of the woman who saved him.

“...” a blush spread on his face.

“...You caught a cold?”

“Might be…” Anas covered his face with his arms.

(...She carried me here, right? Damn! It is so hard to look at her face…What does she want from me? ………wait–)

Anas moved away his arms and looked around the room.

If he remembered correctly, he heard other people speak and the dark voice told him that three people were inside the house.

And he was right.

He saw a boy standing, his hair was silky smooth and his eyes were shining orange like contained fire.

Next to the boy was a girl, she shared the same dark skin as the boy next to her. No, in fact…

“Twins?” When Anas looked closely, the boy and girl were nearly identical. They share the same eye and silky hair as well as the skin color as he noticed earlier.

The only differences he could point out were the height, hair length and expression.

The girl was taller and her hair was longer, her expression was relaxed with droopy eyes and gentle face.

The boy was more stern, he looked younger and closer to a child, his hair was also shorter and he reached his sister’s shoulders.

“My my~ he seems to like the view.” the sister said.

“I knew he was a pervert.” the brother commented.

Anas waved his hands nervously. “Sorry! I was just taken aback by the similarities!” He tried to calm down with a sigh and faced them with an awkward smile. “You two are twins?”

“You have good eyes, I see~”

“...Do I?”

It was quite funny for Anas, it was so apparent that they had a connection which made him want to laugh at her comment, but he couldn’t risk it.

Behind Anas was the red-haired woman. She was repeatedly tapping the ground with her foot in irritation.

“...Did I annoy you by chance?”

“Yes.” she was pouting.

Anas narrowed his eyes and opened his mouth at her strange reaction.

“What is with that face? Want me to punch it like I punched that bear?”

“Forgive me, princess!”

“Hmph!” the woman looked away.

Noticing her reaction, Anas sighed in disbelief. He just didn’t understand anything now.

What kind of reaction was that? No, in fact. What kind of world was that and people were those?

It seemed like he was inside a novel. Normal people sure were complex and annoying but he could relate to them.

But those strange NPCs were just…NPCs.

“No, this is wrong,” yeah, for him they weren’t NPCs. They for sure had personalities and even desires, and the looks on their faces and the lights in their eyes…they were real but…

(Are they by chance…just so out there?)

To make sure, he looked at them once again.

The sister was relaxed beyond normal, she even waved at him with a gentle smile when he looked at her.

The brother was overly protective but strangely cute, he immediately averted his eyes the moment they met Anas’.

The red-haired chick was so dumb and strong, she just glared at him when he looked at her.

“Such a roster…” Anas sighed. “So…why am I here?”

The moment he asked his question, the three of them focused on him. It seemed that they got serious.

They looked at each other, then the sister was the one to take steps closer to Anas.

“We were waiting our leader~”

“L–leader?”

She nodded then she pointed at a paper at the wall.

Anas could only understand that it was a map of a forest with a big ‘X’ drawn on it.

“The mark is the place our leader will spawn in~”

“S-spawn…wait–” Anas pressed his palm on his right eye.

“You spawned there. So…”

His face twisted. He knew what she was going to say.

The voice was correct after all, huh?

“You are our leader~”

She said with a cheerful smile.